R3,Suddenly dead battery - warranty (Plugged in, not charging)

Hello, from what I seen around the net, dell only give 1 year warranty for batteries. Mine is originally bought in Disember 2011.
The stinger is that I just purchased an extended warranty(next business day and xps tech) last year that goes to 2014, after an incident where my gpu failed, . Now, my m17x r3 battery stopped working recently. It was until I unplugged the charger that the laptop went completely off, after reboot, I noticed the level is at 0% and plugged in, not charging.

Tried the power drain and bios reflash to no avail. Already f2 at bootup and checked that charging is enabled.
Without batteries, the laptop works fine but at some point, I would want to use the batteries.

Question: Will my current warranty cover battery charge? Is there any other solution to this?
I tried another charger(for my xps studio, not charging and shows charger not recognized, as expected)
Or I guess I'm looking at at 155$ of replacement, a pain but doable.

Extra: I tread my m17 like a desktop. I rarely stress the battery, always plugged in. I game heavily. I never did payed attention to battery % until the night it happens.

UPDATE:tech support confirmed dead battery(through gotoassist and alienautopsy). They shipped new battery due Monday, free.

 

You sure your power adapter is working correctly? The chip might have failed on it and it will only 'trickle' charge, and will only accept charge to run the laptop.

Warranty should cover it I suppose but it could be the charger since they are specific ones, you will most likely need the 240w adapter. If you switch off the laptop and leave it plugged in will it charge at all (give it a few hours)?

Does your GPU throttle when plugged in now? CHeck your clocks if they are not at expected when gaming then I would say the power adapter has gone. They are cheap anyways around $60 or less.

 

Never suspected the charger, could be. Might try leaving it off. I did forgot to mention that after the power discharge, I plugged the battery and the charger. The alienware head starts glowing yellow, white, which indicates charging, but then it stops (no colour). I pull out the chager, reinsert, and it glows again. I kept doing this a few more times thinking it might charge the battery, then I tried booting the laptop without plugged to charger. Doesn't work, and plugged in, boot up, desktop, the battery still at 0%.

No, gpu not throttling as I think so. Atm I can game just fine w/o any fps drops. I'm in Canada, would you suggest I purchase the battery from dell or look elsewhere? Since dell website mentioned charger prie of 100-120$.

 

It's technically a safety feature that the power adapter needs to 'handshake' with the laptop before it will accept charge. If the non verified charger can it will use the power from it but won't charge unless off I think.

I would buy an official battery direct from dell, chargers are cheap though, I got mine from amazon for £30 (its identical to the one which came with the laptop). It's always nice to have a spare charger anyways.

 

The batteries are consumable items therefore they are usually only covered for 12 months period. In regards to the charger is should be covered as long as your laptop has any type of warranty as laptop is not fit for purpose without a PSU. Especially a gaming machine where you need your PSU plugged in to be able to use your GPU at full power. I would suggest going to your local retailer and ask for 240W Dell PSU to see if another PSU charges your battery. And it has to be Dell/Alienware PSU, not HP or generic (they also fit, but might not charge the battery). It might take up to 30min for the battery to start charging from 0%.
You can download a free software to test your battery from here.
In my experience if battery is not being charged it usually is the fault with PSU or DC board/mainboard. It highly depends from usage of course, but batteries usually live at least 2 years and still they have lower fully charged capacity, but do not stop charging completely.

 

Doesn't work, still at 0% after left overnight. Good news: called support, went through SOP(bios setting, trying to update bios but cant since batt less than 10%), and aliencontact gotoassist(whereby he curiously checked all my browser stuff), and confirmed a dead battery. He'll send a new one, arriving in 2-3 business day.

Question: Occasionally, my adaptor will go on and off for like 1 second, I noticed this with fps drops during gaming session. Would a new adapter fix this? Or is is caused by power supply from the socket? Looked at amazon and it'll just cost a cheap 28$ for new adapter.

 

It could be both - DC socket and your PSU. The easiest way to check would be to remove the battery, connect only the PSU and move the cable a bit. Then do the same with another PSU, you can use HP, Dell, Alienware - notice will come up you need to use 240W or another wattage PSU for optimal performance, but you can ignore it for this test. It's really a simple test: if your laptop dies with another PSU - DC socket is faulty and needs replacing and if it does not die with a different PSU - your PSU is faulty and needs replacing. Your warranty should cover PSU replacement, you should not have to purchase one yourself.

 

It happen to me also back then. Just try the power drain for the simple troubleshoot first.... In may case, found out because my house have a really bad electrical supply or installation. So need to turn off the main breaker first and turn it on.

I don't know if it's in your case, but When you try to restart your system ? Does you have some warning after your BIOS screen that say something ? Like your electrical supply just XXX Watt from where suppose to be XXX Watt ?

 

That's great! let us know how it went!

 

For future reference the easiest way of checking the adapter would be to go into the BIOS and confirm it is reading it correctly as 240W. If this is read correctly the adapter should charge the battery.
As for your adapter going on and off it does sound like an adapter going a bit flakey. I would be looking to get a replacement.

As for replacing the adapter be very wary of Amazon/eBay there are plenty of companies now buying in so called clone adapters which look like the real thing but are just a cheaper copy with cheap components and passing them off as genuine. As I work in the industry and buy these adapters in wholesale regularly I can tell you that if someone is selling the adapter on amazon for £30 it is below the wholesale cost price of a new genuine adapter. If you see any company selling one of the 240w adapters for less than £40 I would be highly doubtful as to the adapter being genuine and safe for use with your laptop.

 

Did tried the power drain, few times actually, no dice. No, no warning.

Bios, as in F2 at the start of bootup? I can't recall seeing any info on adapter.
Oh man, I already got one and shipping, cost me about 63$ though. I'll update on its quality and post the link to it maybe a week later.