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

I really think the "root" of this issue lies somewhere with the proprietary power supplies and the bios.
For some reason (maybe poor quality construction of the power supplies or the bios being too "stringent" on recognizing the power supply) it causes the system to not recognize the power supply (non verified ac adapter warning or ac adapter not connected warning).
The system still sees an AC adapter there but since it does not "shake hands" correctly it will just run in low power mode until it does.

This is purely my opinion based on what I have noticed with 2 systems (R1 and R2) with 2 motherboard replacements and the 4 adapters (3x240w and 1 210w) I have at home.

D.

 

debaucher - I agree with you. Having lived through the R1 A04 bios debacle vs adaptors being sensed at 193 watts - Flextronics vs Delta etc.etc. - these systems clearly have something "special" going on (and I don't mean that in a good way).

I can say in my latest sequence that when I was getting the not charging message - when I did my restart test I did verify in the bios that it was indicating it saw 240 W from my adaptor (but the problem remained until the batt removal sequence).

 

Wouldnt a simple solution, given the above last few comments, be to simply do away with proprietory AC recognition in the BIOS? - its a simple solution but probably one Dell wont implement simply because it would lose them revenue on future PSU sales.....obviously Dell will want the owner to come to THEM for a new psu, should the need arise.

I really cant see ANY user benefit from the implementation of such technology, I mean...c'mon..its a power supply....we have laptops.....we NEED constant recognition of that source of power - otherwise we may as well have "costly paperweights"....

NO MORE EXCUSES DELL, PLEASE!

 

Well its fully working now, I needed a 240 W adapter not 210. Thanks guys

back to crysis...

 

Hi,

I have already mentioned this, i have been experiencing a strange issue where the system just lags and the alienware head starts to flash like it is charging then goes back to normally.

I completed the core parking fix as 6 of the 8 cores stated they where parked. This was ok then about 2 hours later it did the same thing again and when i tried running black ops muiltplayer it took about 10 mins to load.

I used windows restore went back to the previous day and everythin was working again. I did a BIOS upgrade from A08 to A10 then downgraded to A09 as each time i logged of i got the awaiting program to finish window for the shutdown sound etc.

I have completed diagnostic checks and drained battery to 7%, the stranged thing was when i connected the power connector it took a minute or so to changed onscreen and the alienware flashing head before it started charging. I have also checked power adapter which i have two of and says 240, this is also confirmed in the BIOS. Any idea's.

 

That is weird.
I know I was getting the same random "head charging" for a second or 2 when I first got this system but then I bought a new SSD and did a fresh install and have not seen that since.

I am not sure if the OS reinstall helped or not, but have not seen that issue in a week.

D.

 

I think 'cos you reinstalled Command Centre during your clean install, thats sometimes clears a few bugs regarding lighting whilst charging etc....i know i found that out simply after uninstalling CC and tehn reinstalling it BEFORE i even did a clean install.

 

Just program the Alien head to be the same color for both power states.

 

I thought that you couldnt program two different colours even if you wanted to ...ahh but thats for the SAME power state, you mean one colour for ac and one for battery? - make them the same?.....

Facepalm lol

 

Mine was the same. I updated my ATI drivers to the latest ones on the ATI website and my machine returns from sleep everytime no problem

 

Im betting that when you resume from sleep, if you have closed the lid to sleep, you lose the ability to use Fn & F5 to dim down your display brightenss??? - would be interesting if you could try it out for me as I have a thread going about problems with sleep whilst using AMD drivers.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-issues-when-using-reference-amd-drivers.html

If you could give it a go, let me know - you may have to sleep/resume using the lid a few times before the brightness goes funky. (If you do try it out, please post on the thread above with your findings as I am trying to provide Dell with as much info as possible and the more people that are aware of this, the "better" - hopefully a fix will be sorted - thanks).

(Sorry guys for slight OT post, just relevant to this particular quoted post)

 

Again in hopes of someone else (ideally Dell themselves) is tracking this issue. Here is the latest sequence I went through The next time I am going to let the battery drain below 20% before plugging in).

Last night I had about 38% battery left
- Shut the system down
- Plugged in AC Adaptor
- Restarted system
Still got the Plugged in – Not Charging status

Note that a couple of days ago, after doing the master power drain reset process & running the battery down to 18%, did the same sequence above and on restart it DID work (plugged in & charging battery).

After above – while the system was still plugged in & running – I removed the battery. When I put it immediately back in, it started charging. Only used for another 15 minutes then shut system down. It appears to have kept charging because this morning the battery was at 100%.

 

I've tried every ATI driver update they've released in the past 6 months along with the ones BatBoy suggested. Still, nothing fixes this issue for me.

 

Care to post about it on the thread above I posted. The more names on the "list" of people who DO suffer from this, the speedier a cure may be expedited. Thanks.

 

Applied A10 and from time to time OSD tells me my R2 is running on Battery even though the AC Adapter is plugged in. This seems to happen several minutes after having resumed from sleep.

Just an F.Y.I.: I have a 240W Delta AC Adpater

 

A couple of posts back I said I'd let my battery get down below 20%, just in case it had some logic in it that kicked in the charging if the remaining % was lower than a certain figure.

Well, no luck. Here are the notes I made for myself for the day that I finally am up for engaging with the support folks:

Last night ran on battery down to 6% remaining. Shut down system plugged in AC adaptor. Blue Alienhead started blinking on & off – but always blue (not the blue - orange – red sequence indicating it is actually charging).

In morning started system & it was still at 6% & was Plugged in Not Charging.

Ran for a little bit like that until emails generated & sent. Shut down system, removed battery, held Power button down for count of 20. Reinstalled battery – plugged in AC adaptor & it immediately started charging (Alienhead color sequence). Left like this for an hour or so, unplugged got to office & it continued to charge until 100%.

It’s seems consistent with the problem & the solution – weird.

 

am i the only one this doesn't happen to?

 

Another update on my testing. I enabled the battery warning in the Bios (I had disabled it essentially right after I received the system because the beeps & the wait to hit F1 is very annoying to me) & low & behold the charging process appears to be working.

I ran the battery down, shut the system down & plugged it in. I got my Alienhead rotating light show (aka charging) right away. I let it charge for just a little bit, unplugged the adaptor, ran on battery for a while - then while still running plugged the adaptor back in. It initially said plugged in-not charging. About a minute or two later it changed to plugged in - charging.

My take on this is that the bios/Mobo is not playing nice with Win 7 if the adaptor warning is not enabled.

 

I have searched the forums and cant find how to Flash my bios i have tried WinPhlash utility but it keeps poping up with an error saying its missing some sys driver and burnt all the files to a cd and rebooting my computer to boot from cd drive but it still wont work im trying to update to A10 from A08 that i downloaded from dell.com

 

First off, read the "read me" from the extracted bios files.
It will give some insight on windows or dos flashing.

Next, how is it not working when you boot from the cd?
Is it not loading the CD etc...

Personally, I would just make a bootable usb drive, copy the files over manually then just run the .bat file to flash (it will tell you what to type in the "readme" file from the extracted bios exe)

Good luck.

D.

 

I too am experiencing the same issues as the general majority here. I unplugged my adapter to use it while doing some bathroom meditation time and once I was done I plugged it back in and went in the living room to watch tv and once I came back and woke it up from sleep it said "83% available (plugged in, not charging). So even with the new BIOS flashed from A09 to A10 it still has not solved the issues entirely. Major frownie faces.

 

Mine used to do this, then I turned it on without the battery, went into the bios and did that refresh thing. I wish I could remember what it was, but I'm sure you guys already know. Then I turned it back on with the batter in after restarting it and I haven't encountered the problem again

 

Is this the latest bios for the m17x r2?

 

Yes, it sure is. As of today, anyway.

 

I got A05. Am I far behind bios upgrades? Should I update?

 

If everything is working well for you, then don't update. The old saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" really does apply in the case of BIOS firmware updates for any computer. There is always a certain element of risk when flashing a BIOS and there's no point in doing it unless it is going to make some sort of a problem go away for you.

The A10 BIOS for the R2 is primarily to help fix the "Plugged in, not charging" problem. If you are experiencing that, then do update. It did not completely eliminate that issue for me, but it's so seldom that I experience it now that it's really not a big deal any more.

 

I few posts back I said that by re-enabling the adaptor warning in the Bios- my battery started charging properly again. Well, that was just a one-off occurrance. The next time I ran on battery - it was back to plugged in not charging until I removed the battery & did the master reset trick.

 

Thanks for clearing that up, San Diego. Mine has been disabled in the BIOS since my first week of ownership (Sept '10) and I was puzzled that it was different in your case.

Have a pleasant Sunday afternoon (assuming you're a West-Coaster like me).

 

What about the touchpad polling rate fix? I am on Windows driver, but it still feels a bit funky. Wouldn't the the jump from A05 to A10 also help with that?

 

Sorry guys if this has been posted before, running this update since a day after available...No issues, power-on and unplug, start up on battery-plug in...does take 10 secs to wake up(realise its plugged/unplugged) but otherwise OK. Running 10.11 Driver, No wake-up from sleep problems or BSOD in the games that I have....Specs as below......Very Happy.

 

It may help you with that, but the touchpad on the R2 is only component that I would call "lousy". I've tried multiple touchpad drivers and have the A10 BIOS and it's still a quirky touchpad. I use a Bluetooth Dell mouse all the time. Give it a shot if you'd like... no harm in that. I actually thought the Windows mouse driver worked the best, but there are few settings that you can change without the Synaptics software.

 

I got my R2 today and I powered it on to the non-dell adapter error. After getting it to a10, I can at least run the laptop on AC only and get full power, but with battery it won't charge and throttles down to battery mode.

A call into AW and they are sending out a tech with new MB and ac adapter. Oy.

 

No need for a motherboard swap. I would decline that, especially on a new system from the factory. Power supply, ok. More than likely its the the BIOS - others are seeing intermittent issues with A10 where the charging issue resurfaces so its not going to be your motherboard. No reason at all for the tech to teardown your new system.

 

Just another update in my periodic plugged in - not charging adventures and echoing BatBoy - who knows better than most of us. My R2 is also just a few weeks old & essentially has this problem every time I run on battery.

I now have three different things that will, so far, always "fix" it (aka start battery charging):
1. Shut down - remove battery - hold power button for count of 20 trick
2. With system on, plugged into adaptor - remove & replace battery
3. And the latest - just shutting down & removing & replacing battery (no count of 20 power button necessary.

This seems to be the Hawthorne effect. Any change to the battery (remove it) will cause it to charge the next time I plug in the adaptor (any adaptor of the three I own).

This reminds me of the old A04 Bios issue on the R1 (couldn't tell the correct wattage from me the adaptor). Ultimately it was fixed by another Bios update.

And while this problem is annoying, this system is so much better than my R1 experience (went through 3 MOBOs & 3 Nvidia card replacements) that based on that experience, I'd avoid getting MOBO replaced if at all possible.

 

Thanks, I did go from a09 to x33 to a10 with support with no difference. I did take your advice, told them no to the MB swap. They will replace the adapter, and if no change "proceed from there".

 

I'm not sure why they like to replace motherboards so often. That's always puzzled me. When I still had my XPS M1730, Dell replaced the mobo twice for the "plugged in, not charging" issue it had. Maybe they are thinking the port the AC adapter plugs into was damaged. They also sent a new battery every time they replaced the AC adapter... 4 times in less than 2 years. I guess that's what you call the "shotgun method".

 

I'd been running in to the "plugged in, not charging issue" over the past few weeks myself, though I could temporarily fix it by removing the power supply+battery and holding the power button down for 10 seconds or so.

Updated to A10 last night and battery immediately started charging again. I'll post again if the problem comes back.

 

Testing by draining the battery to different levels before plugging back into ac power. I thought mine was fixed with A10 as from 70% it charges fine, but let it drain to 20% and no go. Must remove battery to reset.

 

I got my R2 today, Flashed it to A10, have al the latest drivers and I already had it one time "plugged in not charging" , got the 240W adapter

 

Yet another scenario:

Ran on battery for a 15-20 mins this morning. Got to office – plugged in – not charging problem (batt was at 78%)

Just for Kicks - Then Flashed Bios AGAIN to A10 - it was already at A10 (I’ve got the Speccy report to prove it to myself) - but did it anyway.

As soon as Flash was complete & it shut itself down (did not auto restart) the battery starting charging (Alienhead light color show). Also confirmed it was charging when Windows restarted.

Note that I did NOT remove the battery, nor unplug the AC adaptor. I’m sure the Bios Flash was a bigger master reset than any amount of holding down the power button would ever do.

IMO, this is one more example that we’ve got a Bios problem.

 

Very strange issue.I have never experienced this problem with my R2 through a range of Bios that i have flashed to.Currently on A09.Weird

 

Update, Day 3, no call no show from a tech to replace my adapter. Now I am being told monday they will 'surely fix it' or replace it, the same thing they told me last night.

 

when i download this this just downloads a folder with a bunch of things in it, i dont see anything that has "setup" or anything like that, how do i install this a10?

 

One of those "things" should be W851A10 (not the .rom file) an executable. Click on it & it should perform the update

 

Day 6, still no call from tech. AW says they have wrong # which I verified on the 17th.

I requested an RMA this time.

 

Did they give you one? Are they sending you a new machine?

 

Nope, said no last night after promising on Friday. Tech or not today, the only thing stopping me from returning this now is a new overnighted machine.

 

Support keeps insisting that the tech will call tomorrow!! Been on hold 60 minutes again tonight trying to get a manager. Every 5 minutes the tech comes back with another attempt to get me to accept the tech coming tomorrow.

 

Wow, returns hung up on me!!

And 2 calls later, finally got a return label.

 

I've read through 3 threads all related to this similar issue.

I purchased a R1 (I think) from the Outlet store on the 21st, and got it yesterday (quick delivery). Intially, I set it up and it went through the windows boots with no issue. After a few installs and restarts, I got a message along the lines of "Power adapter not factory 240w". I called support and told them of this, and they are sending me a new power adapter. I tried all the tricks in this forum (Hard Reset, Reset CMOS, and Update BIOS), and none of it works. So I thought I would use Respawn and factory image it (just so I know nothing is wrong software wise), and my respawn wont load. So I decided to call tech support again, and they are now shipping me a new hard drive to install.

I really am not too keen on putting my own tools into something I just paid $2k for, but at what point am I supposed to stop?

I think I have the A06, (which is the latest for my service code on their website), but I see you guys posting an A10? Should I install this?
Should I call them back and demand a new motherboard?

The big issue isn't a convienence, like some of you had stated that this problem is. My issue is, it boots into STEALTH mode, where its using the crappy graphics card, and not all of the processor and RAM.

Any suggestions?