AC Adapter Not Recognized

When I turn on my laptop a message and enter Windows comes up on screen that says my adapter is not recognized so a battery logo comes up. After a few seconds the battery logo comes off and it says my adapter is running. After a little while (20 or 30 seconds) the same thing happens, adapter disappears and now the battery logo is on. This goes back and forth for maybe a few minutes until the adapter stabilizes and the power is running entirely through the adapter.

This has not always been an issue. Sometimes the computer turns on into windows without this notification ever. Other times the computer keeps going back and forth between adapter and battery for much longer. Recently this problem is more recurrent and lasts for longer.

How do I fix this?

 

Oh man...welcome to my world lol....I have a post about the same issues. I have had 4 adapters fail on me but whether it is me or whether it is the adapters we can't seem to figure out. It sounds like a bad adapter, if you call up Alienware they can have a new one sent to you and that will most likely fix your problem. There is a chip in the adapter that tells the laptop that it is the proper Alienware adapter and if that chip isn't working or the signal isn't getting through properly your laptop will only run in low power mode and not charge.

If you get a new adapter and if happens again, it could be a more serious issue such as a motherboard. Unfortunately I never found out whether mine was my house power killing things, which I don't think it is as I have tested my jacks and power coming in, or if I literally have the worst luck in the world with electronics which I am starting to think is the case.

 

First of all you need to check for the internally damaged cable. To do so remove your battery, plug in the adapter and turn the laptop on. Keep pressing F2 to go into BIOS so that Windows would not start booting. When wiggle the cable a bit (power lead, which connects to the PSU and the cable, which connects to the laptop). If you do not loose the power at any point - power cable is fine.

All Dell computers (including Alienware) show you the wattage of the PSU attatched in system BIOS. If you get 'Unrecognised PSU' near the AC Adapter type in the very first tab of BIOS screeen, your PSU could be faulty. The easiest way to check if PSU or the laptop is to blame is to find another Dell PSU. Go to your friends or nearest PC hardware store and ask them to borrow you a PSU for a quick test. It has to be a genuine Dell PSU.and ideally the same wattage. Dell PSUs are usually 65, 95, 120 or 240W and the wattage is noted on the PSU itself. If it is not noted, there will be amps and volts, where wattage is calculated by multiplying these two values. My 240W PSU is 19.5V times 12.3A, which is roughly 240 watts.

You can buy the new PSU if you're no longer covered under warranty as long as another PSU is recognised and charges the battery. If all other PSUs are not recognised you might need to spend more on the repair of your laptop's DC board.

 

Pretty much ^^ this, if you need a replacement adapter send us an e-mail to [email protected] and we'll help out.

 

No power was lost when I tested the cable.

When the computer was turned on without battery it ran fine.

When the battery was put back into place it would alternate every several seconds between battery mode and supply mode.

 

Power supply then by your input is faulty, replace it under any warranty you may have or get a new one.

 

How can it be the power supply when the computer works fine when no battery is connected?

 

might i ask what M17 you have?

 

Few questions - flextronics or delta adapter? Is the connection at the laptop end firm or is it slightly loose when you wiggle it around?

If it's a flextronics adapter they are known to be less reliable than the Delta ones and i'd say this is most likely your problem - getting a new replacement Delta adapter should resolve your problem and be more reliable.

 

I have m17x r3.

It Is a flexible adapter, you can move it around a bit.

But I still do not understand how it can be the adapter at fault. If there is no battery present there is no issue.
Also, when the battery (really slowly) charges to 4%, the computer stops doing it and goes back to normal.

 

Original Dell PSUs have a chip inside, which tells the mainboard that the PSU connected is a genuine Dell PSU and how much power it can provide. This helps to adjust the laptop performance: one might have a top graphics card installed (which requires more power than mid level card), but connect PSU from another Dell, which is less powerful by mistake. Weak PSU will not be able to give enough power for the top graphics card and system would not perform to the full potential. When the chip in the PSU fails, it does not send the information to mb as to what PSU is connected and mainboard consequently does not accept charge to the battery to protect the system from a possibly faulty/wrong PSU.

Your laptop is now quite old, this could also be the battery fault. I would say it is less likely, but worth having a look. If you have Alien Autopsy installed, please click on PC checkup, system info, batteries and tell us what is the full charged capacity and designed capacity of your battery? Also you could click checkup instead of system info, then run custom scan, run battery test and view detailed report. At the top of the report you will find the same values for fully charged and designed capacities.

 

Alien Autopsy says the system is functioning within expected parameters on every test.

I believe it is the battery after all. Not the cable. This is because when I take the battery out the computer runs fine. Furthermore, I tried launching my computer through the battery alone and it failed to launch. This shows that the battery is dead. This might be the reason why I have these issues.

Can someone link me to a new R3 battery that is cheap? I found one for $150 but that is very expensive.

 

Does it show that its charging when running with both?

Quite sure that regardless the quality of the battery, as long as its connected it will show its charging / trying to charge.
On my R2 it would change colors on the alien-heads. Probably for you to.

If not showing that its charging, its the computer not trying to charge and not the battery being dead.
My two cents.
Thinking the same as mariussx about the ID chip. Could be MOBO power connector error for you to, even though that is a normal R2 problem and not R3 from what ive read, but there could be similarities since the connector is the same.

The battery will have to be very yttihS not to live for a minute or two each time its been charging for a while.

 

Well there are 2 easy ways to check what is causing the fault and it could still be mainboard or DC board, battery and PSU. Basically what happens when you have a faulty PSU is laptop does not recognise it and does not allow to charge the battery in order to save it from failure. To test PSU - turn off the laptop, turn it on and keep pressing F2 until you see the screen below (please see AC adapter type - it has to have any number and W, not 'unrecognised'. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to get out of BIOS and boot into Windows, if it asks to save the changes, do not save them.


If you see wattage of your PSU - both your PSU and mainboard are fine, you need a new battery. However if it says 'unrecognised PSU', even if you buy a brand new battery it will not charge until you sort the cause of this, which in unrecognised PSU case would be either PSU or DC board. My previous posts advise on how to test the PSU and mainboard - basically swap test with another genuine Dell PSU.

My previous post also advises on how to test the battery in Alien Autopsy to make sure it is faulty before buying any new parts. You have to check and compare fully charged capacity and designed capacity, not current charge though. Current charge does not tell you anything about the health of your battery.

 

I have this exact problem, it shows the wattage of the PSU.... hmm how to get a new battery now

 

my BIOS is showing this.



battery is not charged and error message is showing up everytime I start the laptop with the adapter.
Tried other dell adapter and no luck.

Battery should not be the problem as it is a new one.

any help is appreciated.

 

You most likely have a power socket issue on the mobo if the two PSU's you have used is the same 240W ones made for this computer.
Faulty socket is is a common R2 problem and many in here has discovered this and fixed it themselves.
You might be able to make it charge if fidling the cable in the socket, but it will make matters worse and worse since its probably loosening the socket even more.

See this

Alienware M17x-R2 Factory Defective Motherboard by TimsComputerFix.com - YouTube

You can also search for info about this on this site if you read through many documents contaning this issue, but you are better off doing as the video shows first. You might have to change the socket to, but most likely only the soldering.

I added wires from the socket pins to other points on the mobo where the trace shows that its going, to be sure i got good contact.

 

I dont really believe all R2 motherboards have this defect - maybe a faulty batch used different solder which is more liable to cracking. Under any circumstances I would be suggesting to replace the socket with a new one. If you try to just add more solder to the existing socket you wont actually repair the problem because you'll still have the defective solder in the holes. If one removes the old socket and cleans the holes thoroughly then replaces the socket with a new one with new better solder the problem should not reoccur.

 

Not all have this problem, but it is still a common problem. A LOT of owners have asked this question in here.
Not all R2 owners have this, but almost all with this charging problem has this exact problem and that was the post i answered to I did resolder my socket and for 2 years now its been working perfect after that, even pulling above 280W almost all of the time for about 6 months now after making one of the fastest M17's out there. (since we have dual GPU 7970 in R2's now, and i can really push my CPU)
Dell service man swapped my mobo about 3 years ago meaning i had this error on two mobos, so it was probably from same batch. The batch where they made many of the two GPU setups.



The ground plane steals a lot of heat from the soldering since some of them pins are connected to that, and this has probably caused this problem for many owners since dell probably didnt use enough heat in the first place. Removing old socket would make you have to cut the pins and remove them one by one not to fark your mobo with the soldering heat needed to remove all pins at the same time. This is why I added wires to be sure this didnt happen again even if pins started loosening once more and that i didnt have to apply that much heat to get contact. Resoldering one and one pin need a lot less heat than removing the entire socket.

I had sort of the same problem, and i solved it, and a year later this video appeared where a tech did the same fix minus my wires.
Others have done the same and fixed that same error also adding wires. You can either check it out or try to search for something else.