17 R3, plugged in, not charging, #3

Question

I have the same issue with my Alienware 17 R3. The battery is about a year old, and worked very good, until about 2 months ago, when I noticed the charging stopped at exactly 52%. Giving the connected and not charging mode. Since 4 days it only charges 13%, again stopping exactly at 13% again and again. The laptop is out of service out of warranty, but I do not believe it is hardware. Why does it stop loading at exactly the same loading point? I experience a problem with this laptop not allowing to influence the loading threshold, like can be done in most laptops. Also in the BIOS the battery management is gray (disabled). In my view Dell has disabled or blocked the BIOS management, since on this laptop both windows battery settings and the dell bios is blocked on specific battery charge management like thresholds and max charge. Since that is software and/or bios managed DELL should support this issue as they seem to have disabled it on the 17 R3 machines BIOS for a reason I do not get.

Louis56 · Accepted Answer

Hi All, I found the solution myself. The battery was failing after all. Although Support-assist approved the battery still my Alienware did not any more. At startup I now got a message that the battery was unstable and needed replacement. It was at 30% load but unplugging the adapter caused a complete stop. In short I have insulted the Bios for not being available, but the battery was the guilty part, although Dell support and diagnosis would, and could respectively not detect it. I replaced the battery, and am back at 100% again. Cheers, Louis

A51-06 · Answer

Have you ever replaced the battery by any chance? That may cause issues like battery health degrading and not charging all the way.

Also A fix that helped me for my 15 R2 was that I used this:

How to Hard Reset your Alienware laptop.

1. Force Shut down the Laptop by holding the power button until the screen flicks off.

2. Then open the bottom panel and look for the battery connector on the motherboard.

3.Remove it by gently wiggling it out and then holding the power button while the battery is disconnected.

4.After holding the power button for 15 seconds, let go of the power button and then reinsert the battery connector to the motherboard.

5.Then reinstall the backplate to the motherboard and then leave the laptop to charge after doing everything mentioned above.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Louis56 · Answer

I already tried that, and all the other 7 tips on the internet No effect

ejn63 · Answer

Go into setup (F2 at powerup).  Does the system correctly identify the power rating of the AC adapter, or does it show 'unknown'?

A51-06 · Answer

I would say its a hardware issue most likely the battery itself because depending on its usage it can degrade faster from heat and alot of things. I also recommend you run a ePSA test and tell me the percentage it tells you the battery is at.

Alienware

17 R3, plugged in, not charging, #3

Was this post helpful?