'Plugged in, Charging' as the battery slowly drains? (Studio 1640)

Tuesday (now Thursday), I had my laptop in for repair about heat issues, and they replaced the motherboard, heatsink, vent, and added thermal paste. Now, though, it has been running off of the power adapter just fine, except that the battery is not going up even though it says it's charging...I noticed this last night when I unplugged it to take it to my bedroom, and it said 50% remaining, even though it had been plugged in for hours before that, and was above 50% when it got plugged in. This morning, I opened it up and it had died, and when I woke it up it had 5% remaining, I plugged it in, and now it says 3% after about 20 minutes of charging...any ideas as to what I should do? It's a Studio XPS 1640 with 2.4 C2D, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD.

EDIT: the battery was lasting for at least 2.5 hours easily before this happened.

 

Call Dell straight away ! they definitely messed it up

 

ugh!! I don't want to deal with them again!!!

Maybe I can request a replacement...

 

This could be(likely) a software related issue. Try unplug and plug the battery and cord. What's your battery wear %?

 

Does the battery charge when the system is off?

 

0%, the computer dies when it's unplugged. How could it be software?

No, it was off all night, plugged in...

 

Call Dell. The batt' is under warranty. Have them send you a new brick & battery. They should be able to overnight it to you. I had a similar problem when I had my 1530.

Cin...

 

Have you checked the battery wear level? Have Dell send you a replacement battery to test.

 

How do I do that? I suspect it wouldn't just take a dive from 2.5hrs+ to 0. They won't send me a battery, it's not under warranty...

 

How far outside of the 1 year warranty on the battery are you?

 

it expired Aug. 4th I believe. When I bought the computer, it was one year old, right around the beginning of August.

 

I have this issue with my M1530. New mobo, brick and battery didn't fix it.

 

I'm requesting a replacement if this doesn't fix it. There's no reason I should have to 'put up' with this. It's getting fixed on Wednesday, so I'll post after that. I really hope this fixes it, I hate negotiating with Dell service, they are so stubborn, and it seems like they aren't even listening. "Well we'll try and send a power brick, and if that doesn't work, then you'll need to buy a new battery" "The battery was working before the man 'repaired' it!!" "Are you hearing what I said, sir??" YES!! YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND?!?!
very frustrating. I wasted over an hour and 45 minutes on the phone with this guy. Every day this thing does its little light show (4 blinks yellow and 1 white on the hinge rings) I think to myself "Never again!" Will buy a Mac next time. No question.

 

Have you tried reinstalling windows? I think that might help.

 

Dell finally approved a replacement SXPS 16. Can't wait to get it so I'm not tethered to a wall socket!

I doubt this is a software issue but what do I know!

 

You got a new mobo, battery, and psu. What else can it be?

 

No idea. When I was researching the issue, many people claimed it was due to faulty AC adapters... they claimed that Dell has a bunch of "faulty" adapters in stock and just send them out when a replacement is requested. Apparently the design of the adapter is "poor". This isn't my POV, just what I read on multiple boards.

Software or not, a replacement SXPS 16 is better

 

I'm finally happy with mine, the heat issues have been almost completely resolved, even when I play GTA IV on it. It's also now charging after a new mobo+ adapter. As long as this thing keeps going the way it is, I won't have any complaints.