M17X Battery not charging - R2 owners, *test BIOS* available

Guys,

I used my M17x unplugged last night till it got 75% then I plugged it back in and it says (plugged in,not charging) I have enabled and disabled the battery several times using the fn+f2 key but the message remains the same? I shut it down last night and left it plugged in and this morning it is still at 75% with the same message.

Any suggestions?


MOD EDIT:

See this post for new information
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/400988-m17x-battery-not-charging-11.html#post6926611

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Fix has been released in the form of BIOS A10. See this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/549213-m17xr2-bios-a10-discussion-thread.html

 

Check your power management setup for when it expects to start charging. Let your battery drain further down around 20% and then see if it will start charging.

 

Hi Mandrake, I don't see any thing in setup on when the battery should start charging? I have unplugged now and will drain it on down and see if it starts then?
Thanks for your quick response and help.

 

I haven't checked my M17x but a lot of the advanced power management applications have a feature to tell it when to start charging and when to stop. Supposedly if you have it on the right settings your battery will last longer. I say supposedly because I never did anything like that with my Thinkpad and now it's 3 1/2 years old and I still get a full charge.

Anyway if you drain it further it will test if there is a threshold set for when to start charging.

 

I don't remember which key it was but Fn+xx disables charging of the battery.

You probably pressed it not knowing

Maybe drake could tell you what f-key has the battery picture on it. Just cycle thru it with the Fn key until it shows the battery charging.

 

Nope, I'm at work but he said he already tried FN+F2.

 

Took it down to 20% left and it started charging, The FN+F2 key would not let it charge enabled or disabled until it got very low.

Thanks for the help guys!

 

guys, YAY i got the solution for this because i went thorugh the same problem... First ill post solutions, and then ill make a humble observation.
SOLUTION, unplug your AC adapter, second remove battery, third (at this stage lappy has no power source of any kind) hold the power button for 5-10 seconds. this will solve your problem... it is what alienware calls a power discharge.
Now my observation...this is something that i have been told to do by alienware twice allready... one for the charging, and once for a problems with an issue with the comand center touch controls. Kind of worries me that the machine needs this kind of reset for several problems... makes me question the system design of my lappy

 

Im sure they are still working on command center to some degree (working out the kinks) since at E3 they didnt even have a working command center half the time they were trying to use it , E3 was only a few weeks to the time they started delivering the first orders. .

Hopefully things like unresponsive touch controls(not everyone complains about this though) or battery charging enable/disable will be fixed over time.

 

SOLUTION, unplug your AC adapter, second remove battery, third (at this stage lappy has no power source of any kind) hold the power button for 5-10 seconds. this will solve your problem... it is what alienware calls a power discharge.

Thank you for this information.

 

Now lets see if i can get some humble rep around here... hehehe

 

Done! 10char.

 

woohoo, thanks... my first rep

 

If you want the laptop to start charging just use FN+F2 and choose the battery that looks greyish white(not the colored looking one) and it should say that its plugged in and charging after about 10 seconds

 

nice info. have the exact same problem myself.

 

hmmm. mine won't charge still. dunno whats causing it

 

Unplug ac and battery hold the button for 15 sec

 

yea have done that. noticed another problem. might mean a bigger issue. will post a seperate thread

 

Greetings,

I seem to have a similar issue.
Yesterday when I took my (non-allpowerfull (the old)) m17x to college, it didn't start up, flipped it arround pressed the battery button and it didn't do zit (not even blink the first light).
I remembered that I left it in sleep mode (lid closed) when it was on 10% or so two days prior to yesterday. Not having it used since, can it be that it discharged the battery so deeply that it broke?

I proceeded by plugging it in to the nearest wall socket and was astonished when it didn't load up the battery anymore (it showed that it was charging when hovering over the battery icon, but it was sitting at 1%) ;<

I tried the trick posted above (holding down power button for 10 secs without any power source available to the machine) and that didn't help either :/

So now, two days later, I try getting it to work again (try tapping fn+f2 a couple of times, only shows battery level, not a grey and a coloured battery :S) so I try the 15 second power button thing again, start it back up, and it seems to work!

It's now charging slow and steady, peeked at the underside and pressed the button and it seems to be alive, a blue blinking LED saying hi to me.

So just a pointer here : don't panic if it's sitting at 1% the whole time, it seems to be that the loading curve isn't a straight line, it starts out slooooowlyyyy and then goes up to speed ;>

I'll edit this post if some strang stuff happens, like the battery going out in 5 minutes even if it's at 100% (meaning it's completely busted from a deep discharge)

- Bedeone

 

regardless of level, my bat always starts charging when I plug in my AC (assuming it works of course lol)

 

Why not the colored looking one?

 

Hey guys, guess what? this is all about the Stealth Mode, u might have just accidentally enabled it, disable the Stealth Mode and your battery will start getting charged again

 

I am having the same problem with my battery.. I am discharging it now. I hope it woks.. Quadzilla, Where did you get your avatar?.. THat would be a realy nice wallpaper for the alienware

 

Because of this: http://support.dell.com/support/top...&component=-1&lang=-1&doclang=en&toggle=false

 

Fn+F2: Three modes. Battery disabled, battery meter (colorful one), battery charging active (grayed-out one).

 

I have same issue - none of your suggestions helped

I think it doesn't charge even then notebook is offline

 

I just had this same issue. I was somehow in Stealth mode. It took 2 tries to get it out of Stealth mode. First time said "Full power enabled" then the second said Stealth mode off. Now it is charging.

 

I have had this problem for about a week and i was starting to get worried that i had to send in brand new laptop that i have only had for about 2 weeks because the battery would not charge i had looked all over for some solution that would solve my problem this was the only forum to tell me to take out the battery and power cord and power discharge my laptop. i decided to try it thinking what could go wrong and finally i turned it back on after doing so and my battery was finally charging thank you for the help!!

BTW my specs are:

Alienware M17x Space Black
Intel core i7 [email protected]
Dual 1GB ATI Radeon Mobility HD 4870 in CrossfireX
17-inch WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD (1200p)
6GB Dual Channel DDR3 1066MHz

 

I had the same issue, and the only thing that worked for me permanetly was to have stealth mode off, when stealth mode is on, it doesnt charge dont know why. but at least now i can charge my laptop even if i need to pay more for the electricity bill.

 

I've had this problem, thought it kinda fixed itself, and low and behold a few weeks later it comes back. A power discharge solved the problem this time, but am I going to have to do this every few weeks??? On occasion I also get an OSD message telling me to plug in a compatible adapter. I think my mobo is flawed. The comp is a little over a month old....and it sucks alienware support isn't open 24 hours because I work nights so it appears the only hours they are open is when I'm sleeping. Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. all of the above solutions have been tried.

 

NVM it doesn't charge anymore...it worked once

 

This issue has been cropping up more frequently with my R2. It started out as a once a week issue, now it seems like every couple of days. The shut down, unplug, remove battery, hold power button for 10 seconds "solution" always seems to work but is really annoying. Does anyone have any better solution? I've tried the dis/enable battery trick (FN+F2) and my laptop couldn't appear to care less which version is selected. I've also checked to make sure that I'm not in Stealth mode and I'm not.

The only consistent thing that seems to happen is that it is most likely to do this when I plug it in and the battery is between say 30% and 60%. But that's not a rule, just a trend. I've looked at every power plan setting that I can find and I can't see anything that would allow me to change when the battery does and doesn't charge on AC.

I'm getting ready to call Dell about this as it's pretty unacceptable in my book.

 

I wonder if its the PSU? Is it a Flextronics or Delta?

 

I was told by a tech that this is an issue with the A05 Revision that it is a known problem, and it will be resolved in the next revision. (take for what its worth)

 

I'll have a look tonight and report back.

 

Try this man... Leave the battery & the ac adapter in, turn the laptop on, while on the desktop mouse over the battery icon. It should say discharging, plugged in. Leave the computer on, tilt it to it's side & pop the battery out. Wait about 10 seconds & pop it back in. Now check your battery icon. It SHOULD now be charging...Hopefully! This has worked for me on both my R1 & R2 even when the famous power drain didn't work. It currently works for me all the time on my R2 with A05.

Justin

 

I have the Flextronics power supply.

And of course, tonight I got home, used the laptop for 15 minutes or so (5%) and then had to have dinner with my daughter so I plugged it back in. "plugged in, not charging".

 

I'm having the same issue, and my current PSU is a Delta. Dell/AW has replaced my PSU and I don't know what type my previous PSU was. Both are 240W ones.

Another tech is coming in tomorrow to replace the mainboard as I also have problems with the RAID controller.

Seriously? This sounds like a tricky thing to do with HDDs running? I might try this while the machine is propped up on some books or something...

 

I'm also curious to know why there are 3 battery status icons for the FN+F2 toggle? I can't find an explanation of what they really mean either. The disabled icon is pretty obvious but what is the difference between the other two? Not that changing the battery status has any effect on the charging issue despite being told that it might.

 

I did say tilt though, not toss or shake LOL. You could try it with the books if you feel more comfortable, I have a SSD so I'm not too concerned with it. Let me know if it works for you.

 

Yeah, you did say tilt. The thing is my M17x even messes up my RAID 1 array when I simply turn the system off at night and on the next morning

But I will try your trick!

 

Wow...thats ridiculous. Hopefully this corrects your battery problem. Good luck

 

Laptop Battery Not Charging
* Shut down the system
* Remove the AC adapter connection and battery from the PC
* Hold down the AlienHead power button for 10 seconds
* Place the battery back into the system and plug in the AC Adapter
* Turn on the system and enter Windows. The battery should be recognized now and charging. If the battery is recognized but not charging, toggle FN+F2 until it shows that the battery charging is enabled. Verify this by checking the status bar that the battery is charging

 

This has already been posted multiple times in this thread and is a temporary solution at best. AW needs to find a permanent solution, how hard is it to get a battery to charge when the laptop gets plugged in?

 

n maher

Dell gets this quesiton a lot otherwise they would not have taken the time to post the solution. Have seen many variations of this so thought the official interpretation would be helpful. This is not a temporary solution this is the solution. Notice they suggest 10 seconds to discharge, not 5 seconds. Whether the extra 5 seconds matters I don't know.

 

Sorry, but this cannot be *the* solution. When I buy an expensive notebook, I cannot be expected to turn it off and do a power drain whenever I have used it on battery. A notebook is supposed to just charge when you plug in the power.

Your solution would be acceptable if it was a one-time thing. A fluke. But this is a regular problem and therefore the solution is not to turn off the machine and do a powerdrain.

 

I agree. I still think though the trick that I use a couple times a week is way easier....

 

THE PROBLEM may be a loose connection somewhere between where you plug in the AC adapter and the motherboard. Try LIGHTLY punching/tapping the surface next to the plug. This may make the connection. Pressing the power putton for 10 seconds also may help make a connection if there is a loose wire because you are putting an indirect deflecting physical pressure on the circuit board. This is a common problem and found across all brands of laptops. The three simpilest possibilities are:

1. The laptop's battery
2. The laptop's AC adapter
3. The charger component on the laptop's motherboard.

Other people on this thread have suggested shaking which is pretty much the same thing. If you have identified it as a lose connection than you have a better chance of getting a proper repair. I took apart my old XPS today and was not inspired by how flimsy everything was inside. It doesn't take much heat to distort a connection, board, fan, ect.

If you can't resolve the issue I would refrain from using the battery until the issue is resolved. The situation maybe cause excessive current draw. Also temperatures inside a laptop are high which is ideal for shortening the life of the battery. If the main power is normally used than a battery will only last for about 12-18 months. If you use the battery every day on the hand it will reduce the life as well.

 

I'll try next time

I'm not sure about that. The adapter is recognized as the battery stops discharging, and the system mentions 'plugged in, not charging'.

But tomorrow I'll get a new mainboard and we'll see what happens.

 

Glad you are getting a new motherboard tomorrow. Have not been really impressed with the charger plug as it doesn't seem to seat all that well. That could also contribute to a broken circuit. A broken circuit by whatever cause could read 'plugged in, not charging'. There is a broken link somewhere.