m15 R7, crashing and not charging

Hi drash123 welcome to this free user-to-user Alienware laptop discussion forum. 

The m15 series has Hybrid Power Design. The design intent of Hybrid Power is to maintain full system performance under extreme heavy loading conditions. It does this by allowing power to be drawn from system battery for up to 5%/hr with the AC adapter plugged in. Under a heavy loading environment, the computer may be stressed to pull more power than the designed system power profiles allow for. When playing 8 hour gaming sessions on laptop, Hybrid Power will be disabled to prevent further battery drop and potential system performance issues (stuttering, lagging, throttling) may be seen. Alienware, Precision, and Dell G Series Laptop Performance Issue or Battery Drain While AC Adapter is Connected | Dell US. 

Need more power? Dell laptops are designed to have an ac adapter (charger) of up to 330W maximum. The Alienware m15 R7 (2/28/22) gaming laptop Primary Battery option should be the 6-cell, 86 Wh, "smart" lithium-ion, Dell ExpressCharge Boost. Alienware m15 R7 | Gaming Laptop Computers (dell.com). 

So its not serious to worry about?

Should I Buy a bigger wattage charger?

bump. please help the laptop crashed again today 

Same for me. Im having this issue right now. This has happened to me like 8 times this year, this is incredibly annoying to deal with because it only starts charging once it dies. And sometimes the outlet I use doesn't even charge it until I go and use a different one far away. This time right now, it just shut off running roblox for 5 minutes. LOL
Before it crashed it flashed red for like 5 seconds and my laptop blacked out.
I wish somebody gave a solution to solve this because the only solution I see is just getting a desktop. 

I have this exact same problem. Alienware M15 R7. When just running a game, the laptop just crashes and shuts down. Then it doesn’t recognize the charger and won’t charge. I have to drain the the laptop until it dies before I restart the laptop and it starts recognizing the charger again and then charging. This seems like a manufacturer defect but of course Dell is unwilling to admit it. I’m also one month outside of the warranty and now they’re refusing to help. This is not a cheap laptop by any means and it’s quite disappointing that Dell won’t support their laptops when it’s pretty clear that more than just a few people are having this same issue.  This will be the absolute LAST TIME I BUY A PIECE OF JUNK FROM ALIENWARE/DELL EVER AGAIN. Dell doesn’t stand behind their laptops. I tried calling them about this issue and they just spent the entire time telling me I need to pay them to diagnose and fix this manufacturer defective laptop. This is absolutely ridiculous. What kind of high end LAPTOP DIES ONE MONTH AFTER THE WARRANTY ENDS? During the warranty, I’ve also had Dell change out the motherboard, the fans, AND the thermal paste because the laptop constantly got too hot, would crash, and then wouldn’t recognize the new SSD that I installed. Seriously, what a piece of junk. Absolutely regret buying this thing. 

Just started experiencing this issue within the last week. Has been driving me nuts until I read this and now understand what I am seeing. Details are:

- Alienware m15 R7 running Win11 Home

- I would experience the occasional reboot while system was not in use so assumed it was windows updates (and might still have been).

- I was "cleaning up" the system last weekend by removing software I never used. This included AWCC and Dell support software.

- Really noticed the issue after that whereas the PC would just stop. Determined that the battery was zero charge and system did not seem to want to charge battery.

- Researched online and did the unplug, remove battery connection, press power button 30 seconds, then put back together. That would work for a little while, sometimes a day before same thing happened again.

- Used a restore point to put all of it back to where it was before I removed AWCC and Dell support software. System ran fine for 2 days.

- System JUST did it again just now. Read this thread and saw that the battery was not charging. Ran BIOS diagnostics and it reported same. I then held power button 30 seconds and unplugged charger. When powered up and charger plugged in, battery now charging again.

Event viewer says:

- The pervious system shutdown at 5:41:55 AM on 7/7/2024 was unexpected.

- The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.

- I have tried going to a restore point prior to any of the deletes and thought that resolved the issue but it repeated this morning while trying to play Diablo IV.

Will now try going to a restore point a couple of days earlier...

If this does not look to have resolved this, I can go to a Macrium Reflect backup from a couple of weeks ago as well.

Anyone have any ideas on this issue. It is definitely related to the power system in that the laptop forgets that it is plugged into AC as part of the initial issue that leads to the system abending or is a direct result of the issue and appears when the laptop restarts.

Will replacing the battery work? If not, I may consider buying another one but absolutely not dell anymore. 

@dontcallmecrazy​ I am having this exact issue on my m15 r7. Shutdown while gaming. GPU temp is at 60 deg and it doesn't recognize the charger. It doesn't charge unless it completely dies. Usually while gaming or running 3D design software. 

Did you find a fix? I am contacting support now.

I have been dealing with this issues for the past 2 months, tried buying a new GaN charger and no fix. 2 useless dell technician later and all they can say it my laptop that's 2.5 years old is just aging and expected to have issues now. Lol is a complete joke dealing with there customer service. Playing destiny 2 on 1440p lowest settings and my laptop just continually drains and won't start charging again but hey there's absolutely nothing wrong with my laptop right dell. This is while plugged in and set to primary AC in bios. 

Having same issue here.  Bought in June 2022.  Laptop crashes when gaming (plugged in) then wouldn't charge.  Seems like Dell's hardware is only good for 2.5 years now.  This wasn't the top of the line laptop, but it wasn't exactly inexpensive either.  My previous AW lasted 4.5 years and still going strong when I sold it.  Replaced it with this <Profanity is never allowed. DELL-Admin>.  Seriously eyeing MBPs now.

Same Issue here. My laptop m15 r7 shutdown when gaming and now the battery wont charge. There is a need for a permanent solution to this issue. If a gaming latop overheats and also has charging issues, then it is a big issue

Hi guys. Op here from a different account. I fixed the problem to make it's frequency 1 per 3 month.

1) install dell power manager and set your power to adaptive. if your laptop stays connected all the time to power use primarily ac use. 

2) in the alienware app set your thermal to balanced. I found out that for some reason using high performance thermal also causes the crashes. Full speed mode doesn't do this though so you can still use that while gaming 

3) buy a laptop stand. Lifting the laptop will reduce heat... and the crashes. 

4) this is also very important. If your laptop is at <98% charge and your going to play games better let it charge to 100%. Alienware laptops use some battery along with ac power in gaming and for some reason when there is not enough battery or there is alot of heating in battery the battery isn't able to provide power to the main board causing it to crash while gaming.

That's my theory. For now it's working. 

Similar issue.

The laptop is days out of Warranty, and now the device experiences regular crashes, stops charging, requires a power drain, then proceeds to charge, and after some load or a few days go by, this happens again. 

@DERGIOUS​ I'm having the same problem with an m15 r7, I did some tests and in fact, the machine only dies when it is connected to the charger, I did the game test with the graphics on ultra using only the battery and I didn't have the problem, your solution may be effective, I'll test it!