Dell laptop battery / power issue

mordeith

MODS: Sorry for cross posting but I wasn't getting much of a response in the laptops forum. Delete if necessary.

My Dell XPS is not receiving any power from the charger. The charger is still working as it will power the other Dell laptop (Inspiron) in the house. The charge lights on the laptop won't come on with the charger connected. I have tried with the battery in and out (although I'm not sure if the laptop would receive power from the charger without the battery anyway).
There is a miniscule amount of power left in the battery as when the power button is pressed the boot up sequence runs for about a second. I'm guessing this means its not a motherboard issue. Anyone know what the problem might be? The laptop wasn't dropped or anything but it does seem like it might be a problem with the power jack

yoyo

mordeith wrote: »

MODS: Sorry for cross posting but I wasn't getting much of a response in the laptops forum. Delete if necessary.

My Dell XPS is not receiving any power from the charger. The charger is still working as it will power the other Dell laptop (Inspiron) in the house. The charge lights on the laptop won't come on with the charger connected. I have tried with the battery in and out (although I'm not sure if the laptop would receive power from the charger without the battery anyway).
There is a miniscule amount of power left in the battery as when the power button is pressed the boot up sequence runs for about a second. I'm guessing this means its not a motherboard issue. Anyone know what the problem might be? The laptop wasn't dropped or anything but it does seem like it might be a problem with the power jack

I would guess the power jack is the issue alright, out of interest have you tried wriggling the charger gently in the jack, does it show the charge light? It could be the solder joint for the jack has broken, in some cases these can be replaced simply by purchasing another board, in others desoldering/resoldering would be required.
If you could get your hands on another Dell charger to try it would be no harm though, sometimes the chargers fail to provide an adequate voltage, and while may work in some machines may not work in others, don't buy another but try borrow from a m8 etc. Dell jacks on most recent machines are all the same

Nick

mordeith

yoyo wrote: »

I would guess the power jack is the issue alright, out of interest have you tried wriggling the charger gently in the jack, does it show the charge light? It could be the solder joint for the jack has broken, in some cases these can be replaced simply by purchasing another board, in others desoldering/resoldering would be required.
If you could get your hands on another Dell charger to try it would be no harm though, sometimes the chargers fail to provide an adequate voltage, and while may work in some machines may not work in others, don't buy another but try borrow from a m8 etc. Dell jacks on most recent machines are all the same

Nick

Nick,
Yeah I tried gently wiggling it and I got some activity at one stage but nothing since. I've tried a different charger as well but to no avail. The laptop is treated very gently as it was pretty expensive so it hasn't been subjected to any harsh treatment. I suppose I should just open it up and have a look. I've only aver assembles/disassembled desktops. I imagine laptops are a bit more fiddly. I took the back cover off before just to clean the fan.

yoyo

mordeith wrote: »

Nick,
Yeah I tried gently wiggling it and I got some activity at one stage but nothing since. I've tried a different charger as well but to no avail. The laptop is treated very gently as it was pretty expensive so it hasn't been subjected to any harsh treatment. I suppose I should just open it up and have a look. I've only aver assembles/disassembled desktops. I imagine laptops are a bit more fiddly. I took the back cover off before just to clean the fan.

THe XPS's are tricky in my experience but not as bad as many others; Macs/Aldi machines are usually the trickiest in my experience. Just find a service manual online (Dell are generally quite good at providing decent ones) and take your time . Is it a m1330 or m1530? One or the other (can't remember which) the power board is not soldered to the board and comes seperate, if it's the earlier XPS without the slot loading dvd drive ignore this as I am fairly certain the jack is soldered to the board!

Nick

mordeith

yoyo wrote: »

Is it a m1330 or m1530?
Nick

Sorry, should have been more thorough in my original post. It's an XPS Studio 17. I think the exact model is the 1645

Minatauro

Hi funny I just posted a similar problem with my Dell studio 1557 on laptop forum. My laptop shut down but wouldn't turn on. Charger is fine as blue light on it but when plugged into laptop the little white indicator lit up but went off after about 4seconds.

I disassembled laptop. It wasn't too difficult, I figured its dead anyway so just go for it. I I found the dc in jack and cable were the problem (the button that you turn on the laptop with and the cable that connects it to motherboard) as the end of the cable connecting to the motherboard was charred and partially melted. So it may be resurrected if I can get that cable. it sounds like your problem may just be the same.

mordeith

Minatauro wrote: »

I disassembled laptop. It wasn't too difficult, I figured its dead anyway so just go for it. I I found the dc in jack and cable were the problem (the button that you turn on the laptop with and the cable that connects it to motherboard) as the end of the cable connecting to the motherboard was charred and partially melted. So it may be resurrected if I can get that cable. it sounds like your problem may just be the same.

Right well I guess I'm opening it up then. I came across a few suggestions that it could be the clips inside the jack that need to be prised out a little to form a proper connection with the charger connector. I'll try that first and if no luck there then onto disassembly.

Minatauro

Yeah try that first. The white light that shows that battery is charging kept turning off at the same time no matter how much jiggling with wire. So I guessed something must be shorting it out for it not to stay on.

It's time consuming with all the fiddly little screws. Perhaps take photos at each stage of disassembly so you have a good visual reference for when it's time to put back together. Oh yeah just touch something metal to earth yourself before touching things as static can fry things I believe. I'm no pc builder just gathering info as I go to not make things worse as it's a lot of money for a new laptop.

mordeith

Minatauro wrote: »

Yeah try that first. The white light that shows that battery is charging kept turning off at the same time no matter how much jiggling with wire. So I guessed something must be shorting it out for it not to stay on.

It's time consuming with all the fiddly little screws. Perhaps take photos at each stage of disassembly so you have a good visual reference for when it's time to put back together. Oh yeah just touch something metal to earth yourself before touching things as static can fry things I believe. I'm no pc builder just gathering info as I go to not make things worse as it's a lot of money for a new laptop.

Had a look inside last night but could see no eveident damage to the dc socket or the wiring from it either. I've dropped it into a repair shop this morning. I'll report back with the results.

mordeith

Right, so the repair shop rang back and said there are burnt components on the MB which they can repair for €180. What is the likelihood of this being the case? I've asked them to send me pics of the damage. I would have thought that burnt components would have resulted in an instant shutdown of the laptop at some stage, rather that just the battery draining as normal and then refusing to accept a charge after that.

yoyo

mordeith wrote: »

Right, so the repair shop rang back and said there are burnt components on the MB which they can repair for €180. What is the likelihood of this being the case? I've asked them to send me pics of the damage. I would have thought that burnt components would have resulted in an instant shutdown of the laptop at some stage, rather that just the battery draining as normal and then refusing to accept a charge after that.

Sounds weird would be interesting in seeing pictures alright. €180 sounds cheap for a motherboard replacement, unless they are going to do work on the "burnt" components. I still reckon it's a loose DC jack though

Nick

mordeith

yoyo wrote: »

Sounds weird would be interesting in seeing pictures alright. €180 sounds cheap for a motherboard replacement, unless they are going to do work on the "burnt" components. I still reckon it's a loose DC jack though

Nick

That's what I thought. The guy said they'd replace the burnt components but what are the chances that only replaceble ones would be affected. I would have though a lot of MB components would be heavily integrated, especially on a laptop.

yoyo

mordeith wrote: »

That's what I thought. The guy said they'd replace the burnt components but what are the chances that only replaceble ones would be affected. I would have though a lot of MB components would be heavily integrated, especially on a laptop.

I am also quite suspicious. I do repair stuff myself and would never continue a procedure like that without asking the customer first (and being honest, it wouldn't be something that most people could do without specialist equipment, myself included), not saying they are trying to pull a fast one but that would be my inkling. I reckon it was a DC Jack solder jobby myself, do ask for proof for this supposed rework

Nick

mordeith

yoyo wrote: »

I am also quite suspicious. I do repair stuff myself and would never continue a procedure like that without asking the customer first (and being honest, it wouldn't be something that most people could do without specialist equipment, myself included), not saying they are trying to pull a fast one but that would be my inkling. I reckon it was a DC Jack solder jobby myself, do ask for proof for this supposed rework

Nick

Thanks for the advice. I had dismantled the laptop first myself and saw no evidence of anything loose at the DC jack. I wouldn't attempt any soldering myself. Funny thing was the guy said something about screws missing which is crap as I know for a fact I relpaced all the ones I removed to access the jack. I wonder should see if I can a loan of a compatible battery which would confirm or deny the motherboard problems. Having said that surely they would have tested that themselves (assuming they're not trying to screw me)

mordeith

Okay so I have gotten the laptop back and all is working again. The shop gave me a three month warranty for the repairs. I had asked for the damaged components to be returned to me. You can see the pictures below (front and back of each). I was charged €180 for the repair.

For anyone interested here is what the chip is or does. or DID lol

The IT8512E/F/G is a highly integrated, embedded controller with an embedded micro controller and integrated advanced functions. It is targeted for a wide range of portable application that uses the Low Pin Count (LPC) interface.
The IT8512E/F/G incorporates an 8032 micro controller which is an 8051-compatible, based on RISC architecture. The IT8512E/F/G provides ACPI embedded controller function, keyboard controller (KBC) and matrix scan, PWM, DAC, ADC and SmartAuto Fan control for hardware monitor, PS/2 interface for external keyboard/mouse devices, system wake up functions for system power management, Watchdog timers, timers and general purpose I/O (GPIO), Consumer IR and SPI flash . It also supports the external flash shared by the host and EC side.


The problem is what caused the chip to burn ?

180€ is a lot to spend on repair you could have got a 2nd hand board from e-bay for that, though you don't know if it was previously repaired.

It's a lot considering the chip costs around 4.50 USD maybe 7 euro's, but laptops can be time consuming to work on. if someone gives me a laptop to fix, they never have backup disks, or the original disks, never backup the hard drive and I got to load the OS and all the drivers, at that stage you are talking hours of work, and whatever additional software the want, service packs etc. People have no idea the time it takes. In actual fact you would probably have repaired the board in a lot less time.

One of the biggest problems is most computers today don't come with disks but a backup partition, usually hidden on the same drive, yes you hear me a backup partition on the same drive, seems rather stupid if you let your laptop fall.

Anyway the advice is buy an external drive hook it up via Esata cable not usb, takes forever and back up and I guarntee your computer technician will love you and you will love him because he won't charge you so much.

Anyway my advice is sell the laptop on e-bay you will get a lot more than if it was broken.

JonathanAnon

Could be an 8 pin voltage regulator?

Seems to end in ABEI .. o/p could you post the numbers visible on the chip.

mordeith

JonathanAnon wrote: »

Could be an 8 pin voltage regulator?

Seems to end in ABEI .. o/p could you post the numbers visible on the chip.

I left the chips at work. I'll have a look and post tomorrow.

mordeith

Mad_Lad wrote: »

For anyone interested here is what the chip is or does. or DID lol

.


The problem is what caused the chip to burn ?

180€ is a lot to spend on repair you could have got a 2nd hand board from e-bay for that, though you don't know if it was previously repaired.

Probably but I wouldn't be comfortable changing a Mb in a laptop without knowing it would definitely solve the problem.

mordeith

JonathanAnon wrote: »

Could be an 8 pin voltage regulator?

Seems to end in ABEI .. o/p could you post the numbers visible on the chip.

The 8-pin connector is tiny. On one side it has VC O3. The other side is very difficult to make out. If I was pushed I'd say is says something like R A B (8?) F L