Gah this laptop is so... Odd... At times.

Love my system, love the brand, pretty damn happy. But I have to admit this system has some of the oddest quirks due to it's "complexity" based on the drivers etc. necessary for many things to function.

Anyways that's irrelevant to the problems.

As of recent, I'll use my system, once the battery is low plug in the adapter, pretty simple right? Now it claims it's plugged in, but not charging. Other times, I'll plug it in, turn it on and it'll give me an error, before Windows even initiates and says I'm not using the original 150W PSU supplied - hah-huh-what?...

Nothing has changed in my location, configuration or routine. Same plug-ins I've used since I got the system, so I'm dumb founded, clearly something is on it's way out, either the battery, PSU or the MOBO. My luck Dell will say PSU's and Batteries are excluded from warranty service or replacement, and in that scenario, Dell will have a lot more to worry about than an angry customer.

Another odd issue is when ever I'm typing, for example, right here on these forums, my cursor will randomly "jump" to different areas in the post, sometimes a line up, line down, or paragraphs behind.

Lastly, when ever I go to shut down, it hands on the "shutting down" "logging off" screens for essentially what seems like forever. I've shut the lid, walked away, hours later to open it up and see the same screen(s). My system is optimized, my system does not shut down with updates or millions of things running, I'm not an illiterate user so the "basics" do not apply.

 

Here is what I think you should do. Firstly, do a power-drain:

Shutdown that system.
Unplug the AC Adapter.
Remove the battery.
Press and hold power button for 45-50 seconds.
Put in the battery and Power Cord and then restart.

If you are still getting a BIOS warning regarding the adapter, you can turn off that warning through the BIOS and it's completly safe , Whenever I get this error, I realise that the power cord is not tightly put in the socket, so you might wanna check that. Or you can give dell a call and let them know about it but a power-drain should fix this issue as far as I know. It is advisable to put in the power-cord after you see the alienhead in the BIOS but it all depends on your preference.

As for moving cursor while typing, your hands might be touching the trackpad while typing and you can turn off the trackpad by pressing Fn+F11 I think( not sure about the combo because not in front of the system right now). You can also go to AlienFx Command Center and tweak the sensitivity settings of the track-pad and it works great. This problem occurs because the trackpad is on the left side of the palmrest as you already know that. Wish they had put it in the Center rather.
Hope this helps.

 

And for system shutting down very late, you can use CCleaner to clean the registry and a few other software like Tune Up Utility 2011 which optimises the system startup and shutdown problems. I use it and it works great in helping the system run smoothly everyday.

 

Cheers,

I've done the power cycle six or so times this week, for 50-60 seconds loosely at a time and nothing seems to self correct. I've also assured the connectors are all tightly inserted, heck I've even tried slightly "bending" the cords and rotating the adapter to see if it's a strained or pulled connection and yielded no results either (not exactly the most scientific test procedure but it generally is a simple diagnostic).

That was actually my first suspicion. Oddly it occurs with the track pad disabled and only using an external mouse. The track pad makes me feel "claustrophobic" or restricted in control when using a computer.

CCleaner is part of my regiment of software as well as routine monthly defrags, virus scans with NOD32, as well as Spybot immunizations. Also utilize Windows 7 Manager to tweak other settings. Have disabled many startups and services.

As I said, not a "generic" user. lol. I've exhausted my tool kit you could say.