i dont know too much about computer hardware but realize that anything that has to do with changing a bios is *major* and therefore havent touched it yet. (i can see your concerns, smayhem.) ill try the flash on the weekend with some professional support.
and the other reason for not running it yet was the randomness with which this power adapter problem occured in my case: only happened once last saturday. been fine since.
the laptop did, however, start with a 'fatal error' message when i tried to boot it yesterday. might have to do with this inspiron 6400 not liking any of my additional hardware - the webcam was still plugged in when i booted. i had posted about this problem in another thread though....
My adapter for Inspiron 9300 (PA 10)is not working, which I don't know why. The green light is not even on. Can I use the adapter for Inspiron 6000 (PA 12) for Inspiron 9300? PA 12 is 65W, and PA 10 is 90W (I think)
I do believe the PA-12 is compatible with the PA-10 so you could try it on your 9300 to test. The thing is, being 65w and not 90w, it is only strong enough to run the laptop and not charge your battery -- or, at least, not strong enough to charge your battery in a timely fashion. In any case, I used a PA-12 to test my laptop and isolate that the problem was in fact the power cord and not the jack in the back of the laptop or the BIOS. Hope this helps.
This is laughable at best,tragic and rediculous at worst. I too have been experiencing the same "battery not able to charge" described by many previous posts. I followed the instructions for the flash of the BIOS, but received an error telling me to contact an administrator. I went to the forums, and found the fix for this glitch by doing the regedit work around that was recommended, and it worked fine. One problem though; since my sweet dell battery won't charge, it is dead. Apparently, in order to flash the BIOS, your battery has to have at least a 10% charge on it. I give up at this point. Why in the world would a computer company place so many hurdles in front of what should be a normal, if not routine operation. I want so bad to get online and purchase a time traveling machine to go back in time to tell me not to purchase any computer that leaves the support of their products up to the customers on forums. Although it is a great way to obtain information, I would think a company like dell would be able to afford a testing department that would test the problems associated with a BIOS update prior to the release and fix those issues, or at the very least make 'work arounds' available to their consumers they obviously do not give a rip about. Nice work dell, you have succeeded in losing another customer.
What has happened is this, the adapter cord has a broken wire in it. If you cut the cover off of the plug that plugs into the back of the laptop you will see 3 wires that are soldered to the plug. The two wires that are soldered to the outside of the plug are the positive and negative terminals. The third wire (this is the one creating the problem), is soldered to the middle terminal, on the bottom.
The third wire, (the little one) needs to be soldered to the middle terminal. This wire has i believe 2.5 volts going through it which lets your laptop detect the proper power supply. The wire breaks at the point where it is soldered to the power terminal.
easy fix
If you don't feel comfortable soldering wires then buy a used power supply off of ebay
qtverse
6 Posts
0
January 24th, 2007 20:00
i dont know too much about computer hardware but realize that anything that has to do with changing a bios is *major* and therefore havent touched it yet. (i can see your concerns, smayhem.) ill try the flash on the weekend with some professional support.
and the other reason for not running it yet was the randomness with which this power adapter problem occured in my case: only happened once last saturday. been fine since.
the laptop did, however, start with a 'fatal error' message when i tried to boot it yesterday. might have to do with this inspiron 6400 not liking any of my additional hardware - the webcam was still plugged in when i booted. i had posted about this problem in another thread though....
not too happy with this laptop so far :-(
jtong002
1 Message
0
June 26th, 2007 18:00
smayhew
10 Posts
0
June 26th, 2007 19:00
ena1512
6 Posts
0
July 24th, 2007 02:00
hausfield
2 Posts
0
January 21st, 2009 15:00
What has happened is this, the adapter cord has a broken wire in it. If you cut the cover off of the plug that plugs into the back of the laptop you will see 3 wires that are soldered to the plug. The two wires that are soldered to the outside of the plug are the positive and negative terminals. The third wire (this is the one creating the problem), is soldered to the middle terminal, on the bottom.
The third wire, (the little one) needs to be soldered to the middle terminal. This wire has i believe 2.5 volts going through it which lets your laptop detect the proper power supply. The wire breaks at the point where it is soldered to the power terminal.
easy fix
If you don't feel comfortable soldering wires then buy a used power supply off of ebay
hjlint
3 Posts
0
May 11th, 2011 12:00
My 9300 doesn't recognize the Dell AC Adaptor anymore. To up-date the BIO's.Battery has to be at 10 pecent charge. My battery is DEAD.
Will tri another AC Adapter.
Hedley In PA,