Studio XPS 1340 battery won?t charge properly (most of the time)

I've had this issue for the last couple of months (during which time my laptop has essentially been used as a desktop).Over the last couple of days I've been trying again (after previously giving up) to resolve this problem.

My laptop is a Dell Studio XPS 1340 running Windows 7 Ultimate (32 bit) with the latest drivers from the Dell website. The battery is a Panasonic Lithium Ion battery (Type T555C), Rating 11.1V, Capacity 56Wh.

Basically my problem and other misc details are as follows:
• The laptop battery usually will not charge with the charger plugged in (even though windows shows "__% available (plugged in, charging)" the % available does not increase)
• BatteryCare (batterycare.net/) shows the charge rate at +0.0 W when plugged in (i.e. not charging)
• When the laptop is plugged in it will run fine (aside from the battery not charging); battery maintains its current level of charge while plugged in
• The battery will not charge with the laptop turned off and the charger plugged in
• The laptop will run normally off the battery if the laptop is not plugged in (will still last 4-5 hours from 100% and seems to decrease normally)
• The Dell Battery Meter (downloaded from the Dell website) under "Battery Health" says "Your battery is performing normally"
• BatteryCare states a Wear Level of 9.77% for the battery

Two days ago I tried running the battery calibration tool from Battery Doubler , when I started the battery was at 0%. The process was meant to take ~120 minutes, I left it on for 5 hours and nothing seemed to be happening (no progress bar) so I cancelled it but to my surprise the battery was charged to 100%. I unplugged the cable, let it drain to 97%, plugged the cable back in and it charged back up to 100%.

The next day (yesterday) I used the laptop on battery for around 2 hours decreasing the battery level to ~65%. I tried charging it but again it didn't work.

I ran the Dell diagnostic utility (which took a couple of hours) and after that it started charging again.

This time I tested it as follows:
• Let battery charge up completely to 100%
• Unplugged the charger and let battery drain to 90%
• Plugged in charger and charged it to ~93%
• Turned off laptop with charger plugged in, turned laptop back on later to find it charged to ~98% and then continued charging it to 100% with laptop on

So at that time it was charging fine both when the laptop was turned on (BatteryCare also showing a positive charge rate) and when turned off (charge % increased while it was switched off).

Today I once again tried charging the laptop with no success so I again ran the Dell diagnostic utility. In particular I performed the primary battery bay tests of:
• Battery Charger Test: ‘Verifies that the battery charging circuitry is operational’
• Battery Communication Test: Verifies that system can communicate with the battery.
• AC Adapter Info Test: ‘Compares specified register and data against read value'
• Battery Health Test: ‘A normal characteristic of a rechargeable battery is that it’s operating duration decreases over time. This test determines the health of the batteries currently installed in the system’
All tests passed but this time the battery would not charge (I guess the first time it worked was just coincidence then?)

Sorry for the length of this message but I wanted to include all relevant information. The laptop is out of warranty so unfortunately I can’t just send it back to Dell. Any suggestions about how to proceed would be greatly appreciated.

 

usually battery charging problems are related to the power adapter... nto the battery. i've had this problem with my laptop. i got the power brick replaced...and bingo... battery now charges

 

Thanks for the reply! It would be great news if this was the problem since power adapters are fairly cheap.

Was your issue the same as mine in that the laptop would still run with the power adapter plugged in but the battery wouldn't charge? Or was the laptop not running with the adapter at all? (just double checking we had the same problem before I go out and buy a new brick )

 

Any other suggestions from anyone else? Is there a good way of testing whether the power adapter is the cause (short of actually buying a new one to test it)?