Dell laptop charger problem - any quick fix?

Zapho

Ok so I've just fallen victim to a ridiculous flaw with Dell laptops - the fact that if your laptop cannot detect the ID of your charger, it will refuse to charge the battery......even though the charger still works perfectly!!! Eugh, so incredibly annoying.

So the story is that Dell chargers have an ID chip in them thats multiplexed along the power signal wire. That chip is notorious for failing...for whatever reason...and then you're laptop will complain that "AC power adapter not determined" before windows starts. Just to note, I've tested the laptop (inspiron 6400) with my friends power supply who has the same laptop and it worked fine so my problem is definately the power supply, not the laptop, battery or power jack.

Sorry, this is more of a rant than anything else. I just can't figure why Dell would enforce something like this...but I'm also wondering has anybody been able to fix this problem WITHOUT buying a new charger? Like a BIOS hack or something?

ricman

I use a universal charge 19v on my dell 630 ,it works fine.

Zapho

Yeah, I've a 3rd party adaptor as well - no dice!

duckysauce

Zapho wrote: »

Ok so I've just fallen victim to a ridiculous flaw with Dell laptops - the fact that if your laptop cannot detect the ID of your charger, it will refuse to charge the battery......even though the charger still works perfectly!!! Eugh, so incredibly annoying.

So the story is that Dell chargers have an ID chip in them thats multiplexed along the power signal wire. That chip is notorious for failing...for whatever reason...and then you're laptop will complain that "AC power adapter not determined" before windows starts. Just to note, I've tested the laptop (inspiron 6400) with my friends power supply who has the same laptop and it worked fine so my problem is definately the power supply, not the laptop, battery or power jack.

Sorry, this is more of a rant than anything else. I just can't figure why Dell would enforce something like this...but I'm also wondering has anybody been able to fix this problem WITHOUT buying a new charger? Like a BIOS hack or something?

So the story is that Dell chargers have an ID chip in them thats multiplexed along the power signal wire

---

where did you find that info ?

Zapho

duckysauce wrote: »

So the story is that Dell chargers have an ID chip in them thats multiplexed along the power signal wire

---

where did you find that info ?

I can't find the original source, but this website has some info and pics.

x in the city

Zapho wrote: »

Ok so I've just fallen victim to a ridiculous flaw with Dell laptops - the fact that if your laptop cannot detect the ID of your charger, it will refuse to charge the battery......even though the charger still works perfectly!!! Eugh, so incredibly annoying.

So the story is that Dell chargers have an ID chip in them thats multiplexed along the power signal wire. That chip is notorious for failing...for whatever reason...and then you're laptop will complain that "AC power adapter not determined" before windows starts. Just to note, I've tested the laptop (inspiron 6400) with my friends power supply who has the same laptop and it worked fine so my problem is definately the power supply, not the laptop, battery or power jack.

Sorry, this is more of a rant than anything else. I just can't figure why Dell would enforce something like this...but I'm also wondering has anybody been able to fix this problem WITHOUT buying a new charger? Like a BIOS hack or something?

that is bs tbh, they have no chip inside. a faulty psu maybe.

FGR

I've fallen into this trap too. Am running on my second adapter which is on the brink of failing.

Anyone know whether the new Studio 15 or 17 laptops are cursed with the same type of charger?

Zapho

x in the city wrote: »

that is bs tbh, they have no chip inside. a faulty psu maybe.

Seems like you jumped to that conclusion pretty quick....

Its not bs, its well known. Here's another link

x in the city

weird, first i heard of that!

brownej

x in the city wrote: »

that is bs tbh, they have no chip inside. a faulty psu maybe.

Unfortunately it is not BS. If you have a functional Laptop and charger and you go into the Bios screen and look at the power options it will tell you what charger you the make and power rating of the Dell charger plugged into it.

The OP is lucky that it's the chip in the charger that's gone and not the chip on the motherboard that identifies the power supply thats gone. I know from experience that that's really really annoying.

Any of the round tip Dell PSUs use this technique. It's intended to protect the PSU from overloading or to prevent the machine from crashing due to lack of power (but it does restrict you to using Dell PSUs as a result). So if the adapter doesn't report its wattage, the laptop won't charge the battery as it cannot tell if the adapter is too weak to do so, like if you're using a PA-12 (65W) on a machine that needs a PA-10 (90W).

The data is fed through the centre pin in the power tip, if this is broken (or the internal wiring feeding it) you will encounter this problem. I also have a PA-10 in work which intermittently fails to transmit its wattage correctly, I'd assume this is the chip inside.

hearny

I know you said without buying a new charger but they are pretty cheap here:

http://pcscience.com/product.php?pid=17318&

Its €14 ex. VAT, trade only but Im sure you could get around that.

hearny

hearny wrote: »

I know you said without buying a new charger but they are pretty cheap here:

http://pcscience.com/product.php?pid=17318&

Its €14 ex. VAT, trade only but Im sure you could get around that.

That's a PA-12, therefore a 65W PSU. Can only replace another PA-12 or a PA-2E, it won't replace a PA-10 or PA-3E which are 90W PSUs.

Bebop

This is a built-in safety feature found on Dell laptops, it detects a faulty or wrong type of PSU and is designed to prevent damage to the laptop or battery,
Buy a new PSU and forget the conspiracy theory