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

I'm having this same problem with my m17x r3 and I dread calling tech support.

 

Yeah. i spoke to 3 reps, all said that slow ssd issue is fixed and it works ok.....strange is it ?

 

the weirdest thing happened so ive had this plugged in not charging for along time now ive already talked to dell about it and they said theres a fix in the works but i was just trying things out on my alienware and curious what the stealth mode did and stuff and was fiddling around with it when i looked in the alien fusion it was in stealth mode even when plugged in so i searched how to disable it and no lie i disabled it and bam the plugged in not charging went away and started charging the battery i had no intentions i was just browsing and fiddling with the stealth mode and bam i started charging again so now i have plugged in charging

 

gosh, It just happen today with my new rig R3..... after I use it using batteries and there's battery low notification, plug the power cable and the notification appears. Restart the laptop and not charging appears in BIOS. decide to turn off and wait for about 1 hours and working well until now...

 

i would try disabling the stealth mode if its enabled because since i disabled mine and ran my batterie down 5 times since yesterday with the machine on and plugging in the ac it has charged everytime so im really happy and amazed

edit:also i seem to have a longer battery life from an hour to 2 hours no idea but i like it lol

 

its gotta have something to do with stealth mode because i recreated the issue by enabling stealth mode and sure enough it went back to plugged in not charging after running the battery down so soon as i disabled the stealth mode it went back to normal which is plugged in charging

 

I hate stealth mode. I wish it wasnt even there. What a dumb idea...seriously who needs to run these beasts on battery power? I dont get why you would bother to run an R1/R2/R3 on battery unless your powercord happened to fall out.

 

has anyone else tried disabling the stealth mode to check if the (plugged in not charging) goes away?

 

OSD controls stealth mode.

Uninstalling AW OSD fixes this problem. I don't think uninstalling OSD is a proper solution, because you loose some functionality . I dealt with this problem from January to June. I honestly don't think they can fix it. The R2 suffers from plugged in not charging/code 43 error & sleep/resume brightness problem. Most M17x R2 owners with this problem in the past have been all upgraded to M18x's.

The sleep/resume brightness problem and Aero Bug are problems on the M18x. Both of those problems are caused by AW OSD.

 

Just "for the record". Uninstalling OSD did NOT fix my problem. (I had to uninstall OSD some time ago because of WMI errors when an External HDMI monitor is attached - which is most of the time for me).

I'm (still) one of the "lucky" folks that can fix the problem by just popping the battery in & out. Maybeuninstallingg OSD gives me this simpler fix (but then I'm probably giving too much credit where absolutely no credit to Dell is due)

 

hmm not sure i never said to uninstall it i just said try disabling it but i guess either way it doesn't work for you anyway which suck,my m17x r2 is on its way to the depot to be repaired for something else which i think they cant fix either but we will see.on a side note the design of the laptop is very nice but i think just because the real alienware people sold out to dell and dell getting there crusty hand son a already perfect machine loaded all there crappy junk into them and shoved it down peoples throat is not kool .i kinda regret getting the machine now that im going through all this with there rude techs and shotty service

 

It has been more than a month with no activity on this thread. Anyone needing to discuss problem, or to let us know if something is ever done to fix this known issue can go to: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ul-m17xr2-edition-owners-lounge-part-3-a.html.

(If a fix is actually released that works, please PM me or another Alienware Forum mod.)

 

I have reopened this thread due to a potential workaround that has been suggested. I will leave the thread open for potential discussion. Hopefully, this will work for many others. If it helps in your situation, please thank and give rep to San Diego 7697.

 

Where might we find the workaround? Do you have a link?

 

Here's the "fix" I sent Mr Fox:

My "fix" for the plugged in not charging problem has boiled down to changing the GPU power state setting while on battery to Max Performance (instead of balanced).

As I'm sure everyone knows, even when you select the High performance power option in Windows, it defaults to balanced power while on battery unless you specifically & change it.

Since making this change back on 8-31-11, it has not failed during dozens of attempts. Previously my failure rate was about 1 in 3 (I've actually been sending myself an email every time I plugged in after using the battery for most of the year). You'll find many-many posts from me on this thread, from which you'll find my other system settings & fixes I've tried (that ultimately did not work)

While I still believe this is a Dell design flaw and should have been fixed, I have learned to live with this "fix" (I was one of the lucky folks that could just R/R the battery to get it to charge again, so I never did have the worst symptoms).

 

I am sorry to revive a thread like this one; so since a few days i got the message "Your AC power adapter is Non-Dell's Adapter." also the battery is not charging in Windows. i got all latest updates from all connected hardware and my software is up to date. what i do not get is: i have not changed anything in my hardware for a long time, i got the Delta 240W power brick and i tried all known solutions in this thread, what is going on? is my power brick gone?

 

There is a possibility your AC adapter has finally breathed its last breath. Is the battery charging except for when you are in Windows? If so, look for the discussion in this thread about deleting the Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery and see if that helps.

 

Just want to reply as I was having the same issue. It was due to hitting the stealth mode button. Once stealth mode was off it instantly began charging again. Issue solved. I have had my m17x r1 since it came out in '09. The battery has only lost 15% of its capacity and works very well for being over 3 years old. And i agree, lol, its a laptop not a NES.