"The AC adapter and battery must be plugged in before the system bios can be flashed"

Hi Daniel,

In order to update BIOS ac adapter must be connected to the laptop and the battery charge should be 10% or greater. Without this, you will not be able to update the BIOS. You can check the battery health from control panel by following the steps below:

• Click on Windows logo on desktop.
• Type 'Power options' in search bar above that.
• Click on Power Options.
• Check for the 'Battery Health Meter' among the different options on the left side of window.
• Check for battery health and check if the battery charging is disabled.
• Uncheck the box for 'Turn off the battery charging'.
• Restart your computer to check if the issue is fixed.  

You can also check and let me know the status of light on AC adapter. Try using alternate AC adapter and see if it makes any difference. 

Please share the findings. 

Hello,

I have not 'Battery Health Meter' option on the left side of window.  

My OS is Windows Vista Home Premium.

Thx.

Daniel

Hi Daniel,

You can check the 'Battery health' and 'Battery info' in system BIOS. This will give you detailed information about the battery health. You can follow the steps below:

• Restart the computer.
• As soon as you see the Dell logo, start tapping the ‘F2’ key on top of the keyboard.
• If you wait too long and the Microsoft Windows appears, then continue to wait until you see the Windows desktop. Now shutdown your computer and try again.
• After this a new window would appear. You can only use the arrow keys of the keyboard to navigate between the options as the mouse is not functional in this mode.
• Navigate to 'Battery info' to check the AC adapter and battery status. 

• Navigate to  'Battey health' to check the status of battery. 

Please let me know the status of both. 

Another step you can try is to install the Quickset utility for your computer from link: http://dell.to/Wt64vl 

Steps to download application:

• Click on “Download File”.
• Select “For Single File Download via Browser”.
• Click on “Download Now”.
• Save the Quickset on your desktop.
• Once the Quickset is downloaded on the desktop, right click on it and select “Run as administrator”.
• Follow the prompts on screen and restart your computer.
• Restart your computer. 

Once the quickset is installed, you can check for battery health under 'Power Options' in 'Control Panel'. 

Please share the findings.

Hello Chinmay,

May be my description wasn't too clear. My battery is dead, it is from 2007. The charge is zero.

I use the laptop as a workstation, never like as a laptop, so I don't need a battery.

   1) why have I to replace the battery just to upgrade the BIOS? My power supply is connected to an UPS.

   2) do you have a "trick" or somethingelse to force the installation of A09 file?

Thanks for your support.

Daniel

Hi Daniel,

To update the system BIOS, battery should have a minimum charge of 10% and AC adapter connected to system. There is no workaround to force installation of system BIOS. If possible try using a similar known good battery while updating the BIOS. 

Please reply for further clarifications. 

How about I dont buy Dell laptop for my next laptop because you forcing me to buy a battery to upgrade my BIOS?

Forcing me to buy a $100 battery for a laptop which worth $100. You think it is a good business strategy? Ridiculous... 

I have a similar message showing up on a Dell Latitude E5510.  In the bios, the battery information states that its status is normal and it has a 98% charge.  the original Dell power supply is plugged in.  When I try to update the bios to version 10 it tells me that I need to have both the power adapter and battery plugged in to proceed.  What should I try next?

You need a battery in place so that the BIOS update can finish if you have a power failure or if the DC plug becomes loose. An incomplete installation will result in a dead laptop needing a new system board. You can purchase replacements  batteries from Amazon or e-Bay for around $20.

The solution was simple:-
First download the BIOS update, to a folder that you can remember easily or to your desktop, for example mine was D620_A10.EXE and it was located on the desktop.
Next type cmd in run and press enter,
then at the prompt type cd desktop , you should then see something like this C:\Documents and settings\rob\desktop
now type in the folder name of where the update is located, or if its on the desktop simply type in D620_A10.EXE <--- where that is the name of your bios update now if you were to press enter it would bring up the dialogue saying "The AC adapter and Battery must both be connected, before flashing the BIOS" so here s the great bit, simply type /forceit after the .exe with a space and sit back and watch the update!!
example C:\Documents and settings\rob\desktop>D620_A10.EXE /forceit

Font.: club.myce.com/.../how-update-bios-dell-laptops-without-battery-260714

Posted byrlamontagne

SUCCESS AT LAST!!!!!!

Using this tutorial I was finally able to make a workable usb boot disk.  Then copied Bios A09 to the root of the flash drive.

Then restarted and from the cmd prompt I ran "1530_A09.exe /forceit" 

The bios flashing was uneventful and upon restarting the battery started charging again.  

Good luck to the rest of you guys.

***BE VERY PATIENT ONCE YOU INITIATE THE FLASH (IT CAN TAKE UP TO 15 MINUTES). YOUR LAPTOP WILL EVENTUALLY RESTART TO WINDOWS.*** 

Next time take time to read the question and refrain from "solving" the issue stating the obvious.

PS: Another trick may be (I have not verified it yet, but may, as I got a Dell laptop w/out a battry) to try to unpack the BIOS exe (by executing it in linux under DOSEMU for example) and once you ar eable to unpack the binary flash BIOS file and the flashing utility, to use those (from a FREEDOS CD/diskette) top try directly to flash the binary - this is what worked for my for a Dell Vostro desktop system.

I have the same problem and I can't buy a replacement battery on Amazon or ebay because they are not shippable by plane anymore. So, there is no way to get a new battery, and with the old one in place, my laptop doesn't start at all.

How about Dell produces better batteries, mine worked about 6 months!

I cant use a boot USB drive, cuze my laptop freezes when connecting a pen drive.

That's why I want to update my Bios.

The Dell engineers haven't thought of a solution to update the Bios without a battery? Seems pretty weird!

This my first Dell, and I thought it was quality, but I get problems over problems, while i always use my very old Acer, I updated form win7 to win8 and now to windows 10, and all the hardware updates fly in automatically, and never had a driver or bios update problem. And only my second battery in many years!! Why everything with Dell is soo complicated? Not to mention they first lost my laptop at delivery, shipping to a completely wrong address...

Any easy to perform way to update the Bios? Thanks a lot!!