AC Power Adapter Type Cannot Be Determined

I have discovered that the adaptor does not work in my house. It doesn't matter if I plug it into a power strip or directly into the outlet. It powers the unit but does not charge the battery. However, whenever I use it at this restaurant (where I have weekly meetings) it works fine -- charges the battery and everything. 

Or, at least, it has worked fine for two weeks running.

I haven't tried it anywhere else.

I had to buy a new adaptor as nothing else worked. I thought it was just overuse but this makes me think otherwise. 

well, I can top you all that have had/are having this AD adaptor type cannot be determined issue.  Our non-profit has 5 Dell Vostro 1000 laptops that we use for our yearly conference.  They have been in a temperature controlled storage environment since June 2009.  Today I retreived them to start preparing for this years conference.  Guess what.  ALL FIVE give me the Warning discussed in this thread.  I wonder if Dell has an explaination for that??  They were all purchased at the same time, so went out of warrantee at the same time.  No one has used or abused the machines or the adapters since June 2009 (when they were working fine.  Hmmmm...

Wow.. I started this thread a while ago.. looks like this problem has been coming up a lot..

anyways.. to update my situation.. i am now on my THIRD AC adapter..

I figure thats the cost of maintaining a dell..

pick up a generic one off craigslist/ebay.. no need to spend 50 bux on one when u can get it for 15-20..

Just wanted to add another data point.

I own a Studio 1537 running Vista-32 that I bought in Feb of 2009. I have been using a replacement AC adapter from a third party vendor for about 7 months. (I lost the original somewhere in Disney World).

Recently I started having the "power adapter cannot be determine" problems. The error message is instructing me to use a Dell 90W or higher model. I tried the "remove battery and CMOS battery" trick. I had to re-enter the date and time, so I know I did that correctly, but it did not solve the problem.

I can run the laptop on the adapter alone, so it is not the DC input connector on the mother board.

I upgraded the BIOS to the latest version, but that also did not solve the issue. I still get the "plugged in, not charging" pop-up.

I will be trying a new Adapter tomorrow. I'll let you know what happens....

I gave up with my power supply problem.  My Dell laptop has gone to that great place in the heavens that has SUPERB power supply hardware and motherboards.

I'm happy for my laptop.  I'm switching to a Mac from now on.

Now, if I could just figure out how to UNSUBSCRIBE to the dell forum!

Update: I brought home a Dell PA-10 90W adapter and it is working fine! No messages, and the battery is charging. I guess my adapter simply failed. Good luck to everyone with their adapters.

I have an Insprion 600 which has had th battery recalled and replaced and is almost never used now after 6 years of first winter only service in Florida then backup to a two year old M1730 when it fails to start. It is possible that an incident of pulling the cord oddly with the notebook on the bed and not in a suitable place caused the adapter to fail. It reports this "power adapter not recognized cannot charge the battery" message now and the adapter is kind of wobbley and won't go all the way in the socket. There is a single wire in there that seems at a kilter and blocking full engagement.  I poked at it a bit hoping not to unsolder it from the encircling cylinder if that is what is in there and it now goes in better but still shows the message.

Try this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRMqSDo5M14&feature=related

Regards,

Yakin Thakkar

(Dell Studio 1555)

You can add me to the list of people who have had the "power supply cannot be determined" problem.

My XPS M1730, (new in July 08) uses the big 230 watt power supply.  After I got the error message I ordered a new power adapter from Dell, which was shipped out right away, and that fixed the problem.

From what I've read on other boards, there is a chip in the power supply that transmits the power adapter info through a small wire in the center of the connector.  If the chip burns out or the wire breaks then the problem gives that error message.  This sounds like a defect to me.

The new power supply cost me about $130, but at least the problem WASN'T the motherboard!

You are right about a loose connection.  I have met nine owners of Inspiron 1720's, and every one indicates that the power cable connection is loose and unless carefully seated, often gives the warning about the power adapter.  It is clear that the plug and the jack were never a good fit on many 1720's. My assumption is they were made by different manufacturers, and one of these compnents is off-standard. In my case I, i have simply put up with it, and it has been annoying but tolerable.  Your comments about software algorithm resetting itself, a.nd the fact that the jack gets very hot when not fully seated, make me think it might be better to think about a replacement for the computer.

Hi, I think you are confusing 2 posts because my jack does not get hot and I never mentioned anything about that.  The algorithim in the BIOS is simply a software glich because, once the power adapter is mistakenly tagged 'not Dell' due to a loose connection, the system does not reset itself once the connection is corrected and the computer rebooted.  It took disconnecting the BIOS battery for it to reset. I have zero other issues with my M1210 and no plans of replacing it.  It's a nice unit overall.

I just fixed this error message and got my computer charging again by disconnecting the interenal BIOS battery under the keyboard. On person suggested half an hour, but I did it overnight just to be sure. When I reconnected the battery, plugged in my adpater and fired the computer up I no longer had the problem. Getting to the battery is easy. 1) remove hinge over, 2 remove keyboard, 3) gently disconnect the battery connection to the motherboard (it is on the right under the keyboard - a flat pancake battery about the size of a nickle). Leave it disconnected for a while then reassemble, plug in adapter and restart computer. If a short period of disconnection doesn't work I suggest doing it longer, as I did - about 8 hours. That seems to give the computer enough time to reset the funky algorithim that is causing the problem. Hope this helps others with this problem.

FYI, I have owned Dell laptops for 8 years before encountering this on my M1210 that I've been running for a year without incident. Evidently, at some point, the part of the power lead that comes out of the adapter to the computer got partially loose, and the poor connection tiggered something in the software that told the computer that my adapter was not Dell, even though it is a fairly new Dell 65W power supply.

Just wanted to point out what I think the root cause of many of the problems noted in the above thread: loose connection due to I720 components that do not, and in some cases, never fit well together. I am glad that overheating of the connection has never been one of your problems, but occasionally has been one of mine. I would not look forward to the problem you describe which required a reset. 

I gotcha.  Well, at least the reset is cheaper and easier than replacing the adapter or jack.  :)