Two possibilities: the power jack has come loose from the mainboard (may be repairable - $150-200 with a soldering expert shop), or that the charge circuit on the mainboard has failed (will need a replacement board - $300-450 depending on whether you replace the board or pay a shop the labor charge to do it).
I have the same problem. It started a couple of days after warrantee expired. Started out as an intermittant problem and became worse over several days.
The advice received from Dell was to buy a new PSU, which I did, it solved the problem for about 4 months and it then recurred. The original PSU still works but will only charge the battery once out of 100 connections the newer one was working once out of 5 connections when I bought another vendor's much less expensive unit.
It worked fine for 3 months but when it failed the company sent me a new one free of charge and it worked well for 2 years. It is now missbehaving about 30% of the time.
I now have 4 PSUs which will all power the laptop but will only sometimes charge the battery, which was replaced a year back, when the original was 3 years old.
Seems like a design issue and probably one which makes Dell a bunch of income on new PSUs and fixes to the detection hardware in the laptops.
This issue will steer me away from any further Dell purchases.
Don't buy Sony, Toshiba, or Apple either - they all use proprietary adapter loops - and HP/Compaq has more problems with its power jacks than Dell ever has.
ejn63
9 Legend
•
87.5K Posts
0
July 18th, 2009 14:00
Two possibilities: the power jack has come loose from the mainboard (may be repairable - $150-200 with a soldering expert shop), or that the charge circuit on the mainboard has failed (will need a replacement board - $300-450 depending on whether you replace the board or pay a shop the labor charge to do it).
rajnjn
3 Posts
0
January 15th, 2010 12:00
I have the same problem, mark how did you get your issue solved.
agregg
1 Message
0
May 19th, 2010 19:00
I have the same problem. It started a couple of days after warrantee expired. Started out as an intermittant problem and became worse over several days.
The advice received from Dell was to buy a new PSU, which I did, it solved the problem for about 4 months and it then recurred. The original PSU still works but will only charge the battery once out of 100 connections the newer one was working once out of 5 connections when I bought another vendor's much less expensive unit.
It worked fine for 3 months but when it failed the company sent me a new one free of charge and it worked well for 2 years. It is now missbehaving about 30% of the time.
I now have 4 PSUs which will all power the laptop but will only sometimes charge the battery, which was replaced a year back, when the original was 3 years old.
Seems like a design issue and probably one which makes Dell a bunch of income on new PSUs and fixes to the detection hardware in the laptops.
This issue will steer me away from any further Dell purchases.
ejn63
9 Legend
•
87.5K Posts
0
May 19th, 2010 19:00
Don't buy Sony, Toshiba, or Apple either - they all use proprietary adapter loops - and HP/Compaq has more problems with its power jacks than Dell ever has.