XPS 15 7590, WD19TB, Will Not Charge

@LCinNJ  and @princebuy  Windows itself wouldn’t have any settings for charging since charging is managed by system firmware, so you’d only control it within Windows through Dell apps. And to my knowledge there’s no way to disable USB-C charging.

Have you confirmed that the WD19TB charges some other system? Or have you tried another USB-C power source with the XPS 15, even if it’s undersized? You can use a power source as low as 60W. The system will be slow, but you’d at least establish whether it could charge over USB-C.

No response for this? I have the exact same issue.

Hi,

"Have you confirmed that the WD19TB charges some other system? "

I happen to have two XPS 15s, one two years old, one rather new.  With the older XPS15, I DID confirm that the WD19TB does successfully charge the older XPS15.  But the WD19TB does NOT charge the newish XPS15.  Thank you for asking this question, it was the right one to ask!!!  On the other hand, my newish XPS 15 7590 charges fine through the little charging port independent of a dock - confirmed this morning.  And furthermore, my newish XPS15 cannot be charged by an older TB16/USBC I have in the house.  I seems like there is a problem with my newish XPS15.  What would be the next step?  Does this seem like a hardware issue?

Running 1.7 BIOS firmware.

I should add that the WD19TB was charging my newish XPS15 successfully for 2-3 weeks everyday/night.  Then suddenly yesterday it stopped doing so, as I noticed because my battery was decreasing.  Strange how it happened out of the blue.

@princebuy  Ok, one additional check for the WD19TB when charging the older XPS 15.  Go into the BIOS of the older system and select "Battery information".  Under the battery graphic, the system should identify the wattage of the attached power source.  Does it show 130W when connected to the WD19TB?  If so, then the WD19TB appears to be operating properly.

A system being able to charge from the barrel-style connector and not USB-C can happen, as can the reverse situation.  I've seen both reported, and if the chargers being used have been ruled out as possible causes, then the next most likely cause is the DC jack (in cases where the barrel connector is the problem and that's a separate part on that particular system), otherwise it's a motherboard issue.

I believe -- but I'm not certain -- that I've seen confirmation that the XPS 15 7590 can charge properly from a TB16.  At the very least it should draw SOME amount of power even if not the full 130W, since 130W is above the industry standard USB Power Delivery standard, so Dell did something proprietary to stretch that.  And it seems to be a bit oddly implemented.  For example, older XPS 15s could pull 130W over USB-C from docks like the TB16, and then later on Dell introduced a 130W USB-C charger (for the XPS 15 9575, which lacked a barrel style connector at all) -- but that charger didn't work at 130W with older XPS 15 systems, even though those older systems could draw 130W from the docks.  No idea what happened there, but I've read that multiple times.

But I would say that if you can't get your system to charge from either of those docks, then it's very likely a hardware issue even if charging from the barrel connector works.  I suppose it could in theory be a firmware bug, but if that were the case I'd expect to see a lot of reports of that here.  Sorry!

"Under the battery graphic, the system should identify the wattage of the attached power source.  Does it show 130W when connected to the WD19TB?  If so, then the WD19TB appears to be operating properly."

Yes, it does, when connected to WD19TB or TB16.  In both cases the BIOS graphics indicates that it detects 130 watts, yet one can watch the discharging from the green/orange/red battery graphic in the BIOS real-time.  (85%...84%...83%...yet it says charging).  Thank you for asking.

We used the TB16 succesfully with Precision 5510/5520 Dells at my old company, which are very similar to XPS15.  HOWEVER, I had to get my Precision 5520 motherboard replaced 3 times in order to make it stable.  Some known manufacturing defect.

It seems that you think it's a problem with the motherboard in my XPS15, which would be sad. I'll play with it a bit next week and then invoke Dell's support.  Strange how it worked fine for 3 weeks, though as my son pointed out, the XPS fan was always spinning up and down when connected to the dock....whereas the "barrel" style connector keeps my XPS running quietly, no fan.  Strange.

A week ago I was forced to upgrade BIOS to 1.7....is it worth rolling it back to 1.6?  Or am I barking up the wrong tree?  That is, it seems you think that BIOS has nothing to do with this issue if I understand correctly.

@princebuy  Ok, I definitely can't account for the system discharging while attached to a source that it correctly identifies as 130W.  That one is new to me.  In terms of the BIOS, BIOS updates do include USB PD controller firmware, so that could be involved, but if it was a BIOS issue I would have expected your USB-C charging to break as soon as you installed it, not a while later (or before), and it doesn't sound like you noticed this odd charging behavior right after installing 1.7.  But you can certainly try rolling back to 1.6.  You might need to enable "Allow BIOS Downgrade" in the BIOS Setup in order for the system to allow that, but other than that it should be pretty straightforward.

Had some time this weekend to play with it.

My small power supply, original to computer, still charges the computer alone. Good, the battery is fine.   

Switched my power supply for the WD19TB to a 240 watt monstrosity from Dell that I happened to have - originally received for a Precision 5520+docking station combo.  The WD19TB +240 watt power supply when connected to the computer through USB C plug will NOT charge the computer.  Neither would the TB16.  Hmm.  

I noticed this pattern, which is a partial solution for me:

Somehow, by trial and error, I was in a state where both the dock USB cord (powered by 240 watt power supply) and the small power supply - the standard one that came with computer - were both connected to the computer simultaneously.  Battery was charging fine.  

Then I unplugged small power supply, so now it only had the docking station to charge battery.  Battery started to drain after 10 minutes.  I plugged back in the small power supply.  Computer continued to drain.  Uh oh.  How can I get back to that former state?

Next I unplugged the 240 watt power supply from the docking station, waited 10 seconds, plugged it back in.  For the rest of the day, these two power supplies kept the computer charging fine.  

If that's all I have to do, so be it.  Strange.  The order of plugging in the power supplies then matters!  And I need BOTH in in order to use the dock AND keep it charged.  

Does any of this make sense?  Or lead us to a reasonable explanation?

This approach is still working for me after several reboot cycles.  

I suspect that using the 240 watt power supply for the dock, in lieu of the 180 watt that comes with the WD19TB, is not necessary.  But I ain't touching it!

Hi guys,

I have same problem and I would like to share my experience.

First of all I'm divorced with Micro$oft for 15 years, so immediately after my XPS came, it was "forced to self-install" Arch Liniux. Actually it was a Copy/Paste procedure from my old disk to the NVMe. After I added some additional services for thunderbolt support (drivers are already included in the kernel) I had fully functional monster with 2 external monitors.

I noticed that for my daily workloads (some development, compile some JAVA, etc.) the fan(s) are working too hard. With my 8-years old Asus (2 times less powerful) and same workload it was far quite. Anyway!

Everything was working great till last week. Suddenly the laptop stopped charging when it is connected to the thunderbolt. Interestingly it didn't charge also with power chord connected, if it is connected after the thunderbolt cable. If i connect the power cable first, then thunderbolt, battery is charging.

I called the support and they told me they will send a new dock. Today it arrived and..... same - laptop don't charge. I called support again and now I have a visit arranged for motherboard replacement.

It seams it is really a hardware issue.

I'll write when they change the MoBo.

They changed the MoBo and now all is working as expected.

I've got a ticket open with Dell for the same reason. WD19TB charged and worked fine for months, now all of a sudden it "sees" 130W (looked in BIOS) but doesn't charge. Additionally, my Dell 32" (curved) monitor is connected to the dock and when I start Windows up I see a message saying I need to check the cables for it. Dell already swapped out the dock, so that's not the problem. It also charges a Latitude I have from work (yeah, its a lower power requirement). One thing really odd is that Dell support told me to change the BIOS setting under Dell Type-C Dock Configuration to select Always Allow Dell Docks. But that setting doesn't exist. I know older BIOS revisions had it under a USB configuration group, but it's not there either.

@princebuy  Did you ever find a resolution to this? 

Perhaps you can try changing the primary battery charge configuration from adaptive to either standard or custom in F2 bios (and set charge start at a threshold higher than the current battery charge). 

None of it makes sense, but I had the same problem. The resolution was to replace the main board. After doing that the unit would charge with either the original power supply or the dock. The Thunderbolt port is attached directly to the main board so there is no repair for that part specifically.

I have this exact same issue (From behaviour to BIOS Battery Charge State). My XPS 9570 is about 18 months old; outside of warranty and already on its second motherboard already. The power button on my WD19TB works as expected though I do think the power indicator on it is dimmer than it should be.