Dell XPS M1530 Not charging

NewApproach

Hi, I have the above laptop, bought it when it was new on the market, have it 18 months or maybe a bit more. I have a problem somewhere with the power, it runs OK when plugged into the mains but the mains wont charge the battery. So in effect it only works when plugged in. Is this a problem with the battery or the charger, and what should I do?

Thanks!

Voodu Child

Hold down the button on the battery for 3 seconds or more. How many lights come on?

NewApproach

Voodu Child wrote: »

Hold down the button on the battery for 3 seconds or more. How many lights come on?

Just one. When im on the desktop, the power icon says 'plugged in, 8%, not charging' or something to that affect. Usually it says charging.

Voodu Child

NewApproach wrote: »

Just one. When im on the desktop, the power icon says 'plugged in, 8%, not charging' or something to that affect. Usually it says charging.

That suggests the battery is fine. Provided you are holding the button down (rather than just pressing it briefly), the one light is an indication of just minor battery degredation.

So you may have a problem with the charging circuit, or the PSU. Are you still in warranty?

NewApproach

I forgot to say, I have Win 7RC, and it was fine until I let it run low on batt, and then there was a BSOD when normally it goes into hibernation (edit II: but that could have been coincidence because the same thing happened later when I tried to do the same thing on the computer)...

edit: out of warranty, but I'll ring them anyway

mfield

Sorry to drag this thread up but I am having the exact same problem. My XPS 1530 is about 20 months old and it started holding no charge in the battery at all.

I decided two weeks ago to buy a replacement battery, but now the new battery that I bought won't even charge?!

It's only when I started to search the net and read alot of people saying this is a known problem, that I figured that this may be nothing to do with my original battery at all.

Any help would be great, should I ring dell, even though I am out of warranty?

Voodu Child

mfield wrote: »

Sorry to drag this thread up but I am having the exact same problem. My XPS 1530 is about 20 months old and it started holding no charge in the battery at all.

I decided two weeks ago to buy a replacement battery, but now the new battery that I bought won't even charge?!

It's only when I started to search the net and read alot of people saying this is a known problem, that I figured that this may be nothing to do with my original battery at all.

Any help would be great, should I ring dell, even though I am out of warranty?

Was the new battery you bought a genuine Dell battery or a knock-off version?

If it was a Dell battery, it'll have it's own warranty. Send it back and see if another one works.

If it was a knock-off, for all you know the problem is with the battery. A lot of those replacement batteries coming out of China are pure crap, I saw a non-Dell XPS battery swell up and split the seams after a few hours use.

As for your original battery, it isn't uncommon for your original battery to degrade after around 2 years regular/heavy use. These things (li-ion batteries) only have something like 300-500 charge cycles in them. If you were unlucky and your battery fell into the lower end of the bracket, you'd hit those 300 cycles in 20 months easily enough.

mfield

Voodu Child wrote: »

Was the new battery you bought a genuine Dell battery or a knock-off version?

If it was a Dell battery, it'll have it's own warranty. Send it back and see if another one works.

If it was a knock-off, for all you know the problem is with the battery. A lot of those replacement batteries coming out of China are pure crap, I saw a non-Dell XPS battery swell up and split the seams after a few hours use.

As for your original battery, it isn't uncommon for your original battery to degrade after around 2 years regular/heavy use. These things (li-ion batteries) only have something like 300-500 charge cycles in them. If you were unlucky and your battery fell into the lower end of the bracket, you'd hit those 300 cycles in 20 months easily enough.

The new battery I bought is a genuine Dell battery.

I have read more into this and what's really strange is that if I go into the bios settings and look at my battery it says unknown charger but then if I scroll down through the other option and then go back to the battery information it then comes up as '90w Charger' and the battery starts charging?!

So if I then go and boot into windows the battery shows as charging but if I pull out the charger and plug it back in it stops charging, until I do the same process again?!

I'm completely lost on this one.

mfield

Seems to be a right few people having this problem. Something to do with thew motherboard.

My warranty is out, what's the deal with extending it - will they fix the problem if I do this?

Any help would be appreciated.

mfield

I have read that reverting back to BIOS A09 has fixed the problem for some people, does anyone know how I do this? Is it a simple case of just installing the older bios?

Any help would be great as this is driving me nuts and Dell want 196 quid to extend my warranty

mfield

Just to update, I took the plunge and reverted back to the previous BIOS update and guess what....IT WORKED!! Thank fook for that! Happy days!

greep

mfield wrote: »

Just to update, I took the plunge and reverted back to the previous BIOS update and guess what....IT WORKED!! Thank fook for that! Happy days!

Just found your post on ahttp://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=315898
hope you'll be able to help me.

i Mfield,
I have the same problem with M1530.
Tried different adapter & battery etc... Nothing worked.
My warranty expired in Jan 09.

I'm now thinking of replacing the power jack (already ordered one) but as you're saying the downgrade of BIOS to A09 worked for you, it may also work for me. My current BIOS version is A12.

When you had the problem, was your power adapter recognized in BIOS or it was under "Unknown adapter"?
My adapter was not recognized in BIOS and that's why it wasn't charging the battery.
Although once every 100 times (when I plugged in and out the power adapter) it did recognized the adapter and then charged the battery.

Also, where did you download the A09 BIOS from?

Thanks in advance for your help!

mfield

Hi greep,

My adapter was not recognised in the BIOS - some pain in the hole eh!!

Just do the downgrade it's simple and I have no doubt it will work.

Here is a direct link to the BIOS, http://support.euro.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=ie&l=en&s=gen&releaseid=R193896&SystemID=XPS_M1530&servicetag=&os=WLH&osl=en&deviceid=14338&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=5&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=1&fileid=267480

Let me know how you get on!

greep

Great!

Downgrading the BIOS from version A12 to A09 worked for me as well!
The battery is now charging everytime :-)

What I have noticed though is the fact that the Adapter is still not recognized in the BIOS. I don't really care as long as everything is working but... it should be recognized as 90W Dell Adapter.

Thanks