Alienware 15 Plugged In Not Charging

Not sure about this, but if shipping is the only issue, you might consider the ShopAndShip service to South Africa.

I ordered my Alienware 15 R2 from the Dell website, and had it shipped to me here in Dubai via the ShopAndShip branch in New York. You might be able to do the same.

Thanks for the insight Pitzy.

Now if someone from Alienwarfe technical can provide clarification on whether or not a replacement battery can be shipped to me via a service like ShopAndShip if I provide my service tag ID as I am still under warranty.

Hi.

Try doing a power drain.

You can also try leaving the charger connected all night, I had a similar experience with a 17 recently and quite by accident left the charger connected when I went to bed, the battery was charged and functioning normal when I woke up.

I also advise you to change the battery settings in the system BIOS from "Express" to "normal" - You will get much better life from your battery that way, and unless you have a GTX980 you will not get any performance loss from the normal setting

Hey

I have already tried a power drain no such luck.

I have already tried leaving my laptop with the charger plugged in overnight as suggested with no such luck.
I have updated my BIOS as well from A02 to A06 and nothing seems to be helping the issue.

In the BIOS when checking the battery status I get a message stating that the battery is/has experienced a permanent failure and should be replaced.

I have as per your suggestion changed my battery settings from "Express" to "normal".
I have tried to contact Alienware Tech support,but they don't have any chat options for the Alienware 15.

Hey purple397

Thanks for your well crafted supply. It seems quite strange to me that Alienware would allow the 15's to ship with the incorrect AC adapters I had no idea that was even a possibility as it seems extremely fundamental. I have already done the whole unplugging the battery and power drain story as suggested per the Alienware tech support videos.

The quality of the supply coming in from your municipality could definitely give rise to a whole host of power related issues, however in this case fortunately for me I have had a good clean stable steady supply. However adding additional equipment i.e. surge protectors etc. is never a bad idea.

My experience with Ailenware tech support however has been mildly frustrating. Since calling yesterday I spoke to a very polite young woman (can't recall her name). She informed me that they can only ship parts locally in the States and thus are unable to ship anything to me, which I guess is part of Alienware's policy that I don't necessarily agree with but I can accept.

However I have been trying to contact someone from tech support since to find out if any workaround can be made and have received absolute radio silence.

Ultimately I would like to know from you community members what your experiences have been with Alienware customer support and warranties,before the issue with my battery I was strongly contemplating extending my warranty service but now I am not so sure.

I agree it would be great if Alienware tech support did internet typing chat, it seems that it is costly, and frustrating to teach someone to type in English.   Alienware tech support speaks excellent English.  I doubt it would help. but, on the Alienware 14 there is a bunch of talk about opening the laptop, unplugging the battery, then ......  Best to get it from the source, rather from me.  I have found that speaking with Alienware techs on the phone they are extremely knowledgeable, polite, patient.   and so on.  

I would guess that you have determined that the problem could not be with the laptop power cube.  Some 15s were shipped with the wrong charger.   I am also aware that, as of some time ago, that in places like California, where there are frequently times of not having quality power from the power company, like a brown out, but not nearly enough to show in the light bulbs.   People resigned them selves to replacing electronics every year or so because power supplies and power cubes died.   I raise the point, do you have quality power from the power company.   There is a discussion about putting things on your lines, like batteries, and things to protect your equipment.   That is, a power supply for a device can provide sufficient power for whatever (like a laptop, tv, et cetra) for awhile with low quality power from the mains, but it was not designed to do it as a permanent condition.    Yes, it is  not likely to be the problem here, but, you might think about it.  I am sure you already thought surges in this. Put this whole paragraph in   perspective, even if the battery is bad, could you also have a problem with the power adapter?

She informed me that they can only ship parts locally in the States and thus are unable to ship anything to me, which I guess is part of Alienware's policy that I don't necessarily agree with but I can accept.

If nothing else, a service like ShopAndShip (or whatever else works for you) should help you here. Just supply them the US address, and the product should get shipped to you. Might be a bit costly though, depending on circumstances. I don't think Alienware is going to cover the shipping charges.

You might also try the Alienware Facebook page. I've posted several questions there already, and they've consistently replied within the day. Might be a bit of a slow resolution for you, though, as I'd expect that your particular issue will require some more back-and-forth discussion than mine did (mine was a simple matter about whether I could upgrade the RAM to 32GB).

Good luck, and I hope you update this thread when it does get resolved. I sure would like to hear the resolution as I'm sort of in the same boat as you, being in another continent from the US and all. ^_^