Designed to Malfunction?

"On average an adapter will likely to stop being recognised as original in 5 months of usage, check customer reviews."

That is a false statement.

Of course the people who post will have a short average - they are posting because they either want a solution or are just plain upset. Those without problems would be unlikely to write online that their power adapter has worked fine for several years....

For the record, I am using a Dell laptop with a power adapter over 5 years old... My wife's laptop is about 18 months old, still using original adapter. Son's laptop(s) have never had an adapter replaced, despite older on being about 4 years old... Daughter's Dell laptop - never needed power adapter replacement...

Our work has been using Dell laptops for about 5 or 6 years, and I did have one adapter fail on my work computer.

Bottom line, saying they fail every five months is a grossly untrue statement.

lefterise

i just posted on my disappointment with my M 1730.  my power supply is about 5 months old. would the self crippling code prevent the laptop from booting up?  which is the problem that i am currently having.

Malaczar

It may lead you to believe that, but it may or may not be the case.  One way or another, something is faulty - either the adapter or the mainboard.  Just like the "Check engine" light in your car, it's telling you something needs repair or replacement.

You are correct, people who post on the forums do it because they are upset that the adapter broke so soon, and people that had their adapter working for years wouldn't post to say it so it ruins the average. Please scratch that statement about the five months, I take it back

I wonder if the five year old adapter you have has this extra "identification pin" on the jack

This doesn't change the fact that dell shouldn't put crippling code to reduce system performance.

I have an original dell adapter, the output current of the adapter is correct, but the circuit that identifies it as original malfunctions, this is not an extreme case as I saw 400 other people with the same issue on the site mentioned. dell should update the bios to remove the crippling code, that's all i ask.

The BIOS has nothing to do with "crippling" the system - the failure to recognize the AC adapter does that.  The system will throttle down if the proper wattage adapter isn't detected, to prevent battery damage and potential damage to the adapter  -- or overheating that could cause a fire. 

You're making a request based on the faulty assumption that there's nothing wrong - when in fact there IS something wrong and the BIOS loop is there to tell you that.

Dell is not the only manufacturer that does this - Sony does as well.

No I was talking about a very specific issue.

Also your problem is not the Ageia phys-x card burned problem, cause your computer wouldn't power up at all, all indicator leds would be dead all the time

If I want to throttle down my computer's performance that should be my choice, and not the computer doing so without my permission, an no way to circumvent it.

I'd accept it doing that if it measured the output ampers and volts and promting the message. but it is clearly prompting "The adapter cannot be determined" not "Insufficient adapter wattage" which leads me to believe that the issue is with the identification of the adapter's originality, rather that a hazzard prevention action