Inspiron 1720 - Plugged in, not charging.

My battery is now at 0% and every time the charger falls out (happens a lot) it turns off, it's starting to get annoying.

I've tried the trick where you unplug it, take the battery out, plug it in, boot, etc. and it didn't work.

Does anyone have any tips? Or is my charger broken because it's looking very ripped in some areas of the wire (no idea why)?

 

Well, the charger isn't totally broken if it runs on AC. If by very ripped you mean you can actually see the wire, you really ought to replace the charger - frayed cords like that are a legitimate fire hazard and while they can sometimes be used effectively, if you can afford it, it's worth investing a bit in not burning your house down. A damaged cord such as that might indeed be less effective, too - I used a ThinkPad X41 with a frayed cord for awhile and it was quite persnickity. Worked much better once I got a working cord.

If it's just white scuff-marks on the cord, I wouldn't worry about that. I'm pretty sure that's just cosmetic.

I guess the next question is, had the battery life been approaching zero over the medium/long term anyway? If you had 20 minutes of battery life at some point before, it may well just be that you need a new battery. They don't last forever.

If it was a sudden drop for an hour or more to zero, there could be something wrong with the power supply unit inside the computer.

I believe there is also an option in the BIOS to not charge the battery. If that got enabled somehow, that would explain the continuous 0% charge.

Beyond that, hopefully someone else has some tips!

 

I had the same issue several years back. It was due to a damaged A/C adapter cord. I suggest getting it fixed as it's never a god idea to have exposed hot wire out in the open. Don't want your kids playing around with it.

 

Does the plug on the adaptor (the plug that goes into the laptop, not the wall) still have the center pin connected? If that pin is missing, the unit will run on AC but the battery will not charge because it appears that pin has something to do with the laptop verifying the power source as a dell-compatible adaptor.

Other than that, it could be something in the charging circuitry is broken (I could speculate on which part but it probably wouldn't be of any use to you anyway).

Hope that helps.