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2341
September 28th, 2005 10:00
battery will not charge
My battery will not charge even when there is power going to the laptop.
I looked at the BIOS screen and found that it is an "unknown" adapter.
Upon finding this fact out, I bought a brand-new 90W adapter for my inspiron 8600, yet I am still unable to charge the battery and it is still listed as unknown.
I tried phone support to no avail. Usually the representative has no clue what to do and I get transferred to a "more knowledgeable" person only to be retransferred. I was finally put on hold and after being on hold for nearly 2 hours, I decided to just hang up.
This is very rude, I'd rather be told that they are clueless rather than having them waste 2 hours of my time waiting for nothing. Also, my CPU is a 1400 Mhz Pentium-M which runs at 600 Mhz when idle. However, few weeks ago I noticed that now it runs anywhere between 0-600 MHz instead. 600 Mhz being the higher threshold when the CPU is on full load.
Therefore, now not only can I not charge the battery, but I cannot use my laptop to its full extent as well. I am very frustrated at phone support and would not like to try again as it seems that they do not know anything.
Interestingly....... all of these seem to start happening about 2 months after the warranty expires. Hmm.....
Any moderator response would be very appreciated.
Thank you.
I looked at the BIOS screen and found that it is an "unknown" adapter.
Upon finding this fact out, I bought a brand-new 90W adapter for my inspiron 8600, yet I am still unable to charge the battery and it is still listed as unknown.
I tried phone support to no avail. Usually the representative has no clue what to do and I get transferred to a "more knowledgeable" person only to be retransferred. I was finally put on hold and after being on hold for nearly 2 hours, I decided to just hang up.
This is very rude, I'd rather be told that they are clueless rather than having them waste 2 hours of my time waiting for nothing. Also, my CPU is a 1400 Mhz Pentium-M which runs at 600 Mhz when idle. However, few weeks ago I noticed that now it runs anywhere between 0-600 MHz instead. 600 Mhz being the higher threshold when the CPU is on full load.
Therefore, now not only can I not charge the battery, but I cannot use my laptop to its full extent as well. I am very frustrated at phone support and would not like to try again as it seems that they do not know anything.
Interestingly....... all of these seem to start happening about 2 months after the warranty expires. Hmm.....
Any moderator response would be very appreciated.
Thank you.
Message Edited by spedester on 09-28-2005 06:59 AM
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ejn63
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September 28th, 2005 11:00
bad min
18 Posts
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September 28th, 2005 18:00
My worst experience with Dell Customer Service came when my girlfriend ordered a firewire card for her 600m, only to receive a card incompatable with her system. It took hours to get someone to agree to let us send it back for the correct replacement. Then after all that trouble, and sending it back, they sent us the same exact incompatable card model that didn't work the first time! After that all we wanted was to ship the card back for our money back, but no one wanted to help us do that. The people we talked to were for the most part polite, but they were clearly not empowered to make any decisions about this. We had to make several calls. Once, after more than an hour on the phone, our call was dropped, and we had to start all over. (This has happened to me beofre with Dell.) It took a herculean effort to finally convince someone to let us ship the card back a second time. But we were never credited for the refund. After wasting at least 8 hours and enormous frustration on this already, we decided it wasn't worth the anguish to try to chase Dell any more for the money they owed us and simply accepted the loss.
Back in the late 90's, remember when Dell used to use their high level of their customer support as a key selling tool? It would be an absurd joke for them to try that today.
I averaged one Dell a year for six years straight, but I haven't bought since my girlfriend's 600m in early 2003. Customer Service is my greatest dissatisfaction and reason not to buy Dells any longer.
Apologies for the off topic rant.
Kiwibum
21 Posts
0
October 1st, 2005 13:00
Hello there,
How old is your battery? If a battery goes bad changing your charger will not help. Your laptop runs fine on AC power though?
Kiwibum
milt2609
11 Posts
0
October 13th, 2005 23:00
The best way to get to the source of the problem is to find someone with a working laptop (same model) and then start swapping battery; AC adapter; and laptop until the trouble is isolated. Do not be in a hurry to call the motherboard bad. I had a like experience with an Inspiron 8500 and did the swapping drill with my brothers 8500.
First check to see if the good machine will charge your battery. If it charges OK in the good machine, you will have a good solid LED battery light and the BIOS display will show something other than "unknown".
Next take the good AC adapter and use it to power your laptop. Chances are the good adapter will start talking to your laptop and the green battery LED will be glowing.
Only then will you have to think "motherboard". My problem was solved by a new AC adapter.
Now get out there and find a friend!