M17xR2 Bios A10 ('Plugged in, not charging' Fix) Discussion Thread

Updating the progress here, after patiently talking to the rep, he registered my laptop and is sending me 240w power supply, i will report back and update the status once it arrives.

 

The 210 vs 240 watt adapter needs to be in another thread. This thread is for A10 Bios and Charging.

 

I have an M17X-R2 with I7-940XM and crossfire 5870 and have been having a graphics driver issue and the dreaded plugged in not charging issue. I decided to start over with a fresh install of windows and reinstall all of the drivers.

When I went to dells website to download everything, i noticed that there had been a mobo bios update to A10 to fix the charging issue. GREAT! I installed everything up to the bios update without a hitch.

I restarted the computer with all windows updates and decided it was time to get rid of my last problem. Well that is when everything went wrong. I started the windows bios flasher program and it made it to the last step fairly quickly but froze at about 60% completion on the last step. Left it over night thinking it might just take some time.

This morning the screen was blank and the fans were spinning and the hard drive indicator was flashing but infrequently. I could not get the screen to come back, could not get it to shut down, no power down by holding button for 5 seconds. So I unplugged it and took out the battery.

Now the computer does not respond to anything. If I hit the power button nothing happens, no light up, no fan spin up, nothing. Is there anything I can do? I'm really frustrated because I finally got my laptop back in working condition and then this happens. I have never been more dissapointed.

Thanks for any help,

TCH

 

seems like a bad flash and the motherboard may be dead since its not responding at all to any user inputs. Best bet is to call dell and have a tech come out and replace it if its still under warranty. i hope its under warranty. good luck.

 

Indeed it should be, but the problem was not fixed with a10 bios, that is my point.
It might be fixed with a10 + new charger. And i am pretty sure people will have similar problems like i do.

 

Thanks for your input. Do you know if pulling the cmos battery would have any effect? I know if you overclock and screw it up it returns to default, would a similar effect occur with the bios?

Thanks!

 

Doing that just reverts the settings to default or factory state. But what you did is bricked the BIOS. So you also made it to leave on choice but dead. Only way around it is Hard flash. Google around a bit with 'Recover from brick flash' or similar.

If nothing works, call Dell and explain the whole issue in an elaborated way to get the motherboard replaced at first call.

Good Luck.

 

You could try and follow the steps in the below thread and see if you can recover:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/404987-how-recover-bad-bios-flash.html

 

Well, with the X33, X34, and A10, still seeing the same plugged in, not charging issue.

 

Really? - great way to fix things Dell.....just do away with the proprieatory battery guff and eveyone will be happy....

 

A10 BIOS update on both of our M17x-R2 systems, plus a replacement power adapter for the wife's M17x-R2 (they shipped it with the 150 watt, so I had them replace it with a 240 watt), resolved the "plugged in, not charging" issue for us...


so far.

 

Motherboard replacement is your only option. Call DELL. In the mean time, learn how to disasemble the computer so you can watch over the service technician who will perform the work.

 

24hrs up battery charges once it drops to 98% good fix

 

I received the 150w charger today, it seems the battery is now charging and not dells charger warning is gone.

 

You mean a 240w charger? I don't think a 150w would do anything but smoke.

 

I received the 240W adapter as well today and everything seems fine now. Still running tests and other stuff..

200 posts, woot

 

i installed this bios for stuffs and giggles, and now my computer is having problems turning on, and returning from sleep. going to go back to A09 if i can.

 

OK, I let my battery run down to 20% today and plugged back in. Still getting plugged in , not charging. On A10. Had to remove battery and do a power drain to get it to charge.
Getting old...

 

The new bios comes with crysis disk. search this forum on how to do an crysis boot recovery... it should fix your problem

 

My computer has always had problems with resuming from sleep. I've gotten to the point where I never use sleep or hibernate on this laptop. When it resumes from sleep, the screen will not come on until I hard boot the machine.

 

For you two with sleep issues, are you running the AMD reference driver or Dell's 8.763? The 8.763 + 5870 VBIOS resolved resuming from sleep/hibernate.

Those reference drivers are a shot in the dark - they may have issues, they may not. In the 11.1 thread, they are reporting issues with resuming from sleep.

Found, did you try the CMOS clear? Other R2 owners have posted they have not yet encountered the plugged in, not charging since updating. Just wondering if something went funky in the BIOS flash.

FWIW, even though I have an R1, I still have not encountered the plugged in, not charging message since updating to the new BIOS (which included the same fix as the R2).

 

I have the 4870s, so the VBIOS doesn't apply to me. I've tried every driver revision since I got the laptop just short of a year ago and have never been able to resolve the problem. I haven't tried the reference driver you mentioned. Do you think it's worth a shot even if the VBIOS doesn't apply?

 

Yes, since the 8.763 driver included a S3 issue being resolved. Its worth trying.

Since you have the 4870's, see the first section of my post in the linked thread.

 

i'm using the dell drivers, but 10.11 CCC + profiles.

 

It works if the battery is above 50%, its only when it got really low this time I had to power drain.
What is the cmos clear? I have rest the bios to default and then back, but this sounds different.

 

Somebody asked me why I received 150w and thinks it is not enough, that is what I told the technician on the other side, and for a single card system, they will send you 150w, not 210w
i insisted and he said, in the exception of 920xm and 2x5870, it won't matter.

 

I flashed to A10 last night. I had the occasional issue of the adapter not being recognised as official (maybe 1 in 10 times plugging it in), but haven't seen it come back yet. Then again, I've only removed the AC (mostly accidentally) a handful of times since the flash.

That's correct. If you were to order a new system, and didn't add in either the 920XM/940XM CPU or dual graphics cards, Dell would only ship you the 150W adapter. The power draw with a non-XM CPU and single graphics card is a lot lower.

I'd be interested to see how CoH works after your fix. You've only got a single 5870 compared to my dual, so you may need to turn the graphics settings down a bit. But with any luck you should see an improvement.

 

Unplug the CMOS battery from the motherboard after removing the system battery and ac power cord. depress the power button for a 20 count. Keep in mind, once you plug everything back in, if you are on RAID, set it for raid and adjust your system clock (time) setting.

 

A10 seems to be working fine for me. No "Plugged in, not charging" issues here yet other than one time last week when I intentionally ran my battery down below 5% and had so little juice left that I could not stay powered on without an AC adapter connected. I had to drop the battery and reinsert to get charging again.

You know, in all my years of computing, almost every computer I have owned or used at work has been flaky to one degree or another when resuming from sleep or hibernation modes. Problems have ranged from mild to severe, and something always seems to not be quite right after waking up. I just shut down a system completely when I am not using it for more than a couple of hours, and consequently it is rare that I encounter significant issues.

 

I support that ! Sleep and hibernation are very difficult features for an operating system that has to work on many different hardware configurations, since boot times are pretty low, shutting down is favorable
+1 for you mr.fox

 

What Dell told you is true. Unless you have a 920/940 proc or xfire cards, the 150watt adapter is enough.

 

I had a rep last night install the x33 bios. Now when i go to dell to DL the A10 bios update, it says "No drivers to install." Is the x33 an actual bios? In my bios settings under F2 it shows the BIOS as X33.

 

Not True.
My FIRST replacement system first came with a 720qm and 1 285m and a 210w adapter.
It would NOT run on the 210W adapter.
Once I realized I had the 210W, I just plugged in my R1 240W adapter and it started charging like it should and did not give the "incompatible adapter" warning.
It took me 5min on the phone with dell to get them to send me the correct adapter.

Also, despite no longer getting the "incorrect adapter" warning the battery would still not charge but at least it ran on AC.

Dell then replaced a few more parts (Crossfire 5870 to match my old system) and then the A10 came out and it seems to be fine now
(charging etc..)
D.

 

I cannot get the system to charge after getting it today.

I have pulled the CMOS and and then tried booting it with just the batteries installed then plugging it in while booted

I have tried pulling the CMOS and then putting it back in with the AC adapter in before booting ....

I have reflashed A10 twice...

Anything else to try ?

 

By pulling the CMOS I assume you mean you cleared it? If that didn't work, then you could have a defective mainboard or PSU.

 

Try cycling Fn+F2 (battery).
Don't do it fast, just hit it once.. give it a second and see what it says.
If not working, do it again (I think there are 3 separate states)

May not work, but it got my battery charging while waiting for A10 bios.

D.

 

My PSU does indeed work though just won't charge.....

This is definitely a software/BIOS issue that I can't fix... I think I will deal with it until I get my SSD and try a fresh install...

 

Is your PSU recognized properly when you enter the BIOS?

 

No

I have a 240W "BRICK".

It works just fine except it wont charge ... "works"....

 

Since it's not recognized properly, doesn't it through a warning message about it during POST?

 

Updated via windows and everything went fine. My system was on A02 lol but even then I didn't have the charger problem.

 

This is not nescessarily true I can supply you with a few videos I took for Alienware Support where my system throttled with a 150 Watt adapter and a single 4870 and non extreme CPU.

two of the videos were stress tested with prime 95 and furmark running simultaneously.

there is a video where I was not running furmark or prime 95, just L4D2 and I was throttling still. Non existent on the 240W adapter.

If you wanna see PM me

 

I think the whole point of this thread and said battery charging issues is due to hibernate and sleep. I would bet there is some specification incompatibility with Dell's proprietary power mechanism and these ACPI issues. I have used hibernate and sleep consistently on other laptops without these issues.

 

I made sure Dell is sending me a 240W adapter after reading all of this

 

Yes, I am going to contact Dell about this but I am not holding my breath ...

I am going to try re-flashing and downgrading then flashing back up and the "usual" stuff.

 

Moo, if you have a "BRICK" it is most likely a 210W adapter.
Easiest way to tell is if the "Brick" has the blue light it is 210W
If the Plug lights blue and the "brick" is thinner and a bit longer than it is a 240W.
(it will usually list specs on the brick as well).
Could be you just have a faulty one if you do indeed have a 240W one.

D.

 

mine says 240, but I could be wrong I will post up a picture later. It is substantially bigger then my previous 3 M17x PSU's

I have a R-1, R-2 X-fire 4870 and now this one.

 

240w PSU's are also very flat in comparison....larger but flatter....thats my experience! - about the same dimensions as a dvd case but not quite as wide.....and as thick as your AW owners manual....(thats cos i have my manual right next to my brick atm lol)

 

I have a 210 sadly then... dell will hear from me

Thanks guys

 

Well, at first I thought it worked as it resumed from sleep successfully once. Giving it some time I can see that it still resumes to a black screen, requiring a boot to recover about 90% of the time.