battery charging issues

the battery on my m15x is not charging. i have the 210w adapter with right angle adapter with the pin pulled on the right angle adapter. no matter what the battery will not charge. this is an after market battery.

i had an OEM battery in this laptop when my friend first ordered it on ebay and he was the owner. it showed the exact same symptoms as now and i believe the issue is not the battery but something else in the system. at the time i think it had the original 150w PSU but im not sure as i accidentally shipped it with an alienware alpha i had at the time.

when the laptop was first purchased my friend and i both thought the battery that came with it was dead and not working at all. as the lights on the battery didnt show any charge and it didnt show up in the system at all. which is EXACTLY what is happening now with this battery. which WAS showing up in the system but not charging. interestingly. when the laptop is off and not plugged it it shows that its "charging" via the alien head lights when its NOT plugged in. as soon as its plugged in its stops. its like the charging circuits have dyslexia or something.

any ideas what may be causing this? the laptop is on the A09 bios.

 

Hope I understood your post correctly but with the pulled center pin, the battery will not charge no matter what. The center pin is required for charging. Remove the right angle adapter and plug in the AC adapter directly and it should charge.

It could be that the battery is dead. If the cells inside the battery drop below a certain voltage, they are usually useless. I believe the indicator LEDs on the battery packs indicate the voltage level of the pack. So if the voltage level is say 19.5V, all the LEDs will light up, but if no LEDs light up it may indicate that the battery has been discharged below a certain threshold and it will be more or less useless. Some batteries can be revived even when in this low-voltage mode, but that usually applies to individual Li-ion cells, not the entire pack.

Not sure what's going on with the alien head when the AC adapter is pulled, but are you sure you aren't confusing the color change that happens by default when the system is on battery with the color scheme when charging which is indicated by a slow color morphing of the alien head?

 

even plugged in directly without right angle adapter (direct from PSU with pin) yeilds the same results. as for cell charge. idk. it wasnt charging the battery even when the lights were working.

could it be mobo? is there anyway to test it without buying a new mobo?

 

I don't think the 210W one will charge the battery, I think you need the 150W one to charge it.

 

My 210W PA7E charges my battery.

 

Thanks for the correction The 240W one doesn't charge it tho... atleast not for me

 

none of this is helping me i have no idea why it wont charge my battery.

 

Like I stated earlier, if the battery indicator LEDs do not light up when pushing the button on the battery itself, then your battery is probably dead.

 

they WERE lighting up when i first bought the battery. i tried my radioshack charger with a cetner pin on it. nada, i tried the 210w charger with center pin. and without it on right angle adapter. it HAD the oem battery with this laptop but i figured it was dead when i got it becuase the lights on it werent lighting up.

however now this new battery that was discharging normally on this laptop. (but not charging) is exhibitin the same behavoir. the battery is now completly drained and looks like the oem battery did when i first bought the laptop. which leads me to believe it may be something else in the system.

is there any chance it could be software related? i DONT have osd installed because of the BS the program has given me in the past.

what about motherboard. is there anyway i could test to see if its that.?

 

I don't think it can be software related except perhaps a problem in the BIOS. You may want to try reflashing the BIOS.

I would try another genuine DELL power adapter to test again, preferably a 150W model because some have claimed their 210W adapters don't charge their batts (mine does). I would not trust any aftermarket adapter. And make sure the battery pins on the board are clean and intact.

It could be your motherboard though. It can also be that your newer battery is also dead. Like I stated earlier, if Li-ion cells drop below a certain voltage and become completely depleted, they are more or less useless. If the battery's LED indicator does not light up, it leads me to think that this is the case with yours.

Check out this post as well:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19345797

 

I would check the power jack on the board. There are 3 voltage control pins that are responsible for powering the board and charging the battery. I bought my M15x from somebody who said all it needed was a new battery, which turned out not to be the case. I opened up the board and found 2 of the 3 voltage control pins were fried. I had to buy a new jack, desolder the old one, resolder the new one. Just be careful with positioning, don't be stupid like me. System works perfectly fine now.

 

That's probably it. If the center pin socket inside the jack is damaged, it won't charge. Good stuff Raidrar.

Those jacks are cheap. Some soldering skills are needed though.

 

The jack is fine.

Kotsi do you know for sure if the 210w psu you recommended charges the m15x with the pin still on the psu?

I've been using that psu with the right angle adapter and the pin pulled on the adapter. But I'm using an aftermarket battery.

Right now I'm trying to figure out if it's the battery. Or the motherboard that's preventing it from charging.

Ideas?

Sent from my ASUS_Z00AD using Tapatalk

 

I'm using a 9 cell battery and the 210W PA7E adapter and it charges my battery. Some people have reported that the 210W does not charge their batteries though so I can't guarantee it will charge yours. The only thing I did was turn off adapter warnings in the BIOS. I have the right angle adapter with the pin pulled, but when I need to charge my battery, I disconnect the right angle adapter and insert the unaltered 210W adapter directly and it charges every time.