"WARNING: 70 Watt (20V, 3.5A) AC Adapter Detected.

I have a Dell Inspiron 8200. I get an odd error when booting up, "WARNING: 70 Watt (20V, 3.5A) AC Adapter Detected. System will not bt capable of running in full performance mode without a 90 Watt (20V, 4.5A) AC Adapter. Yet, I have the P-9 90 Watt Family Adapter (20V, 3.5A). Once pressing F1 to continue Booting, it boots to XP Pro with no problem (s). Although, the entire time the battery DOES NOT charge. Could this be an issue with a Voltage Regulator on the board?

Spawncho

"You can take the MARINE out of the corps, but you can't take the corps out of the MARINE"

 

Yes, you have a problem here. I've used both a 70 and 90 watt power cord with my old 8200, so I know the message you're getting well. I still never had a prolem charging though, it just didn't run at full speed. I doubt it's the cord, but that is a cheaper problem to troubleshoot if you're no longer under warranty.

Editor in Chief http://www.bargainPDA.com and http://www.SPOTstop.com

 

Warranty is dead. Any additional ideas are always welcomed. I feel better knowing I won't end up with LEFT-OVER SCREWS now.

Spawncho

"You can take the MARINE out of the corps, but you can't take the corps out of the MARINE"

 

Hi, I have the same problem with an inspiron 8100, also with a dead warranty. However, I have tried with both power supplies, and dell states that there is only one type. They sent me a similar one, and ofcause it did NOT solve the problem. Any ideas?

 

Short of making sure you have updated drivers everywhere and the latest bios, no. Anyone else?

Editor in Chief http://www.bargainPDA.com and http://www.SPOTstop.com

 

I have a Dell Inspiron 8200 and I am now getting the same message on start up! Has anyone been able to fix the problem yet, or any clearer on what is causing the problem?

 

I've got this problem too, and have done for the past six months. I have two 90 Watt chargers, and an in-car charger, and the 8200 exhibits the same problem with any of these attached.

But here's the thing - I know exactly when the problems started. The laptop had frozen one evening, and I had to force-restart it. When I did, I saw that message for the first time, and have done ever since!

It's obviously a problem that many people are experiencing, and Dell should really address it.

 

My friend consulted my computer help. His Inspiron 8200 gave him that 70-watt power adapter message. Dell sent him a new 90-watt adapter and it did not fix the problem. Dell then told him that since hes out of warranty they would charge him $700 for a new motherboard ($500 for the mobo and $200 for service). So he bought a gateway, lol.

After the laptop sat unused for over a year, he told me about it and asked if i thought i could fix it. I opened it up and inspected it inside and out with no luck. I determined that the laptop works with the AC power adapter (hit F2 on the error screen and windows boots) but it does not charge the battery which lost all of its charge by sitting for over a year. He thought the problem was in the power jack that he jammed once and a pin bent (he bent the pin back). I tested all the pins for continuity and they all were fine. One thing i noticed is that the dell design with the 3-pin power jack is stupid, only 2 of the pins are really being used (like normal DC ciruits). So after all that I put the computer back together and started some research on new parts.

I found working motherboards on ebay for around $250 but I also stumbled upon another part called a powerboard. It attaches to the mainboard and sits underneath the videocard. They are on ebay for around $25. I dont know exactly what this part does but it is also called the charging board and a lot of the auctions claim that if you are having problems with your computer powering up or charging the battery that you should replace this. This sounds to me to be the problem but since the power goes through the motherboard before getting to this board, i dont know if i will still need to replace the motherboard. What I plan on doing is a little more research on this powerboard and possibly purchase one and install it within the next few weeks. Then I will post on here what my results are.

This is the most I have seen anyone find out about this particular issue and I hope that I will be able to resolve this dihlema for everyone. So far my hypothesis is that a new powerboard will fix the problem. And I hope it does.

-Andrew

 

Any Luck with it? I saw those power boards. I am getting the same error. Surprising for me is I used this Inspiron 8200 for 3 years now and all of a sudden it started getting this error.

Please let me know if you can solve this problem with replacing power boards from EBAY. As I don't plan on spending more on this machine.



Thanks in Advance,
Tommy

 

No dice. The powerboard I bought did not fix the problem. At this point I will not be spending the money to get a new motherboard but I will post if I try anything else. I did see on another messageboard someone who fixed it using a new powerboard, so the problem can be caused by the powerboard and/or the motherboard.

-Andrew

 

I had this problem also, and i stumbled upon a solution that worked for me by mistake.

Heres the solution that worked for me:
take a look at your power adapter cord. look at the very tip, the end that connects to the pc. you will notice three little holes. one is centered at the top, the other two are offset to either side below it. notice, the top center, and bottom left each have metal contacts inside, while the third on the bottom right does not. the solution i found was to give power to the third contact on the laptop, the pin that goes into the hole with no contacts. you can test to see if this will work for you before you open up your laptop, using a small piece of wire. use some small copper or silver stranded wire. use about a 1/2 inch piece. the easiest way is to strip back about a half inch of insulation from a wire, twist, and cut the metal strands off at the half inch point. insert one end of the wire into the top center hole of your adapter plug. bend it over, and insert the other end into the bottom right hole (the one with no contacts). this will effectively create a bridge between the two contacts. plug in your adapter to a wall outlet, and then plug it into your laptop. power the laptop on, and your "70 watt ac adapter detected" message should be gone. if it isnt, try unplugging, and moving your wire bridge around a little bit, maybe it isnt making contact to the laptop's power pins when you plug it in. if you're sure that the pins are making good contact, and it still doesnt work, then this solution probably wont work for you. try purchasing one of the "power boards" listed above. if this did work, then move on to the next part to fix it permenatly.

Permenant Fix:
you will need access to a soldering iron, and some solder. you will also need to dissasemble your laptop. start out by unscrewing the four screws on the bottom marked (K). this will allow you to detach the keyboard. once the screws are out, open your laptop screen as far back as it will go. remove the power button and LED pannel cover. it just snaps out. apply even pressure to both sides at once as you pull it up. you may need the help of a small flat-head screwdriver to get it started. once this is removed, your keyboard should lift up on the right side, and slide out to the right. detatch the keyboard wires at the motherboard (it just pulls up and unplugs) and set the keyboard aside. next, use a small flat-head screwdriver on the heatsink retainer clip to remove the heatsink. Your heatsink is all those copper fins in the top right, by the fans, connected by a heat tube to the block. behind the fins, on the power jack, is where we need to gain access. once the clip is opened up, remove the heatsink. you should now be able to see the rear side of the power jack. notice the three vertical metal strips on the back: these lead to the pins that go into your power adapter. Just as you jumped the adapter plug with the wire, youre going to jump the leads on the jack with solder. if you're not comfortable doing this, have someone who is do it for you. You need to jump the center and right pins together. plug in your soldering iron, and get to work. i'm sure you know how to solder something. once your soldering is complete, replace the heatsink, and snap the retaining clip back down. put the power button and LED cover back on to test. plug your power adapter in, and press the power button. as before when you used the wire bridge, the "70 watt detected" message should be gone. if it is not, your solder isnt making good enough contact. if it is, replace your keyboard and screws, and your laptop is now fixed.

if this solution worked for you, email me and let me know. I'd like you to send me a post card of where you live for sharing this knowledge with you

 

The solution pepsimachine15 WORKS LIKE CHARM!!
THANK YOU SO MUCH.
the permanent solution for me was to make a small channel for the wire that shortens the pins and then superglue it carefuly so that the glue goes ONLY in the channel and not the holes for the pins than you can paint it black with a permanent marker. You can never tell its there
Greetings and thans for the solution, and bye bye to dell with their 500 usd for the mobo + 200 for the repair.

 

I had high hopes for this solution, but it didn't work for me. First of all, my power adapter had contacts in all three holes. I bridged them anyway, but still got the error. I have previously replaced the powerboard and that didn't fix it. I guess it's time to give up on this one.

 

I'm getting the same kind of error message occaisionally with a brand new latitude D820, delivered November 06. I'm using the stock powersupply. The warning refers me to the bios configuration but i don't see anything there to adjust. It could be a loose connection from the powersupply to the back of the computer or it could be a software glitch that misreads the true situation--a false reading. So far this problem has caused me little inconvenience but I'd like to have a fix.

 

I wrote about having this type of problem here, moments ago, on a brand new latitude D820. I found Dell issued a bios update and one of the fixes the listed was elimating falsely detecting lower watt power supplies. I did that bios update just now.

 

I'd like to share my story related to this topic, which luckily had a happy end.

I have an Inspiron 8200, which I bought early 2003. 2 months ago or so I started to get the 70W warning messages. My screen started to flicker, which was due to a fast change between powered and batterydriven mode. After some time the 70W message screen came up asking me to hit a key. I did that, the screen went black and I had to restart the laptop. I noticed that I could temporarily stabilize the screen by gently moving the power plug at the rear of the laptop or even pulling it off and replacing it into the power jack. After some weeks playing with the power supply, the situation got worse. I could not even charge batteries for more than a few minutes as the power supply broke down for some reason. I found the thread above and tried the copper wire method. This worked well in the beginning but after fully charging the computer once the same issues started again.

I decided to try soldering, opened the laptop, removed heat sink etc. Surprisingly, what I found after having a close look at the power jack, was that one of the metal strips on the internal back of the power jack was broken of the motherboard. I have a picture of the power jack on http://www.meining.org/inspiron.html . The fix was now obviously not to jump two metal strips, but to carefully connect the strip to its connection on the board. I've done that and the result is shown on the second picture on http://www.meining.org/inspiron.html . With this fix all problems disappeared. The laptop is now running on external power for more than 24 hours and the power supply is stable. One note of caution: Soldering is tricky and dangerous, so unless you have a very calm hand, don't do it, ask somebody else to do it for you.

 

Hello.

I have been doing some experimenting with your suggestions to fix the 'Warning:70 Watt (20V, 3.5A) AC Adapter Detected". After doing some experiments with the adapter plug, I measured the voltages on the PA 9 connector. The pin numbers are numbered 1 through 3, with pin 1 being the center pin. Pin 2 is to the right, and pin 3 is to the left on the connector. On my adapter I measured, with a volt ohm meter, the following voltages:

Pin 1 to 3 = +20 VDC
Pin 1 to 2 = 0 VDC
Pin 2 to 3 = 20 VDC

I also checked the connection between pins 1 and 2. They are already bridged on my adapter plug. They show zero resistance on my volt ohm meter. Thus pin 1 and 2 are ground.

===============
PA 9 CONNECTOR
===============

-------------------
O (Pin 1)
(Pin 3) O O (Pin 2)
----------------------------

It appears that your suggestion of placing a jumper between pins 1 and 2 is simply adding an electrical ground connection between pin 1 and pin 2. In my case that was not necessary as pin 1 and 2 are already internally jumpered.

I also saw that 'NoteBookPlumber' had noted that his motherboard power connector showed that Pin 3 was broken on the motherboard, although Pin 2 was still connected. He re-soldered Pin 3 from the motherboard power connector. That re-attached the +20 VDC to the motherboard.

I have not tried your 'Permanent Fix' suggestion yet, as my laptop still shows that infamous 'Warning' message noted above. It would be advantageous to know if the electrical connections that I measured are correct. The only way to know that is with a schematic of the power connector circuit. So far, I have not been able to find that. I may try your suggestion shortly to see if I can resolve the 'Warning' message.

I really appreciate your effort in this matter.

Take care.

 

Hello Again
I have done some more experimenting with this computer. I checked the P9A adapter for proper pin connection. It has connections on the three pins mentioned previously. I noted +20 V DC between the center pin and the pin on the left. I have also opened the computer and checked the power connector. All connectons appear to be good I have written to Dell Tech Support about the excessive charging time as this computer takes as much as 3 days to charge the present-original battery. Their email suggested that I replace the battery. I am not so sure about that. I have pressed the test switch at the rear of the battery. When I last checked, about 4 PM yesterday, their were 2 leds lite, suggesting a +20 %. I also pressed and held that same test button for 3 seconds. It did not illuminate. According to Dell's Tech Support web site, the battery is probably good. So, I am in a quandry. I am now leaning on a defective charger board. That board is a plug in board inside the computer cabinet. They can be purchased online for modest amount. Do you think that I am correct that possibly the charger board is not operating fully.

Thanks

 

Hello Again.

Well, I have tried just about every suggestion made that I can find, either here, or on the internet. None of the suggestions fixed either the 'Warning...' message, or the slow battery charging problem. I tried:
1) Purchased a new battery from 'Laptop Battery Depot'.Result No Change. Charges at about 1/4 percent per hour.
2) Purchased a refurbished DC Charger board from an Ebay seller. Result-Same as item 1.
3) Tried bridging the DC power jack, as described by 'PepsiMachine'. Result-Same as item 1.
4) Checked the voltage out of the PA9 AC adapter. My V.O.M. displayed 20 V DC. I wish I had another known working PA-9 to try. But I don't.

I suspect that something else is wrong on the motherboard. To expensive to replace, as a used-tested motherboard cost is over $300.

So, I have given up. While I have fixed the original problem of a defective hard drive, by purchasing and installing a new hard drive. I will be returning the laptop shortly to its owner, who plans on using the computer only for home use, and always on the PA9 AC Adapter. I have suggested purchasing an after market external battery charger, at a cost of about $70. So far, I have not found any used external battery chargers on Ebay, etc. Only new units.

Personally, I would think real hard before deciding to purchase any laptop. I know that the prices are real good now. I still do not like them as far as fixing them is concerned. I am not saying that one brand is better than the other. I have heard that lots of people like the Lonovo-formerly IBM, laptops. After performing this project, I am not so sure. My only advice would be, if one is going to use the laptop beyond the normal warranty period, to purchase the extra warranty coverage. Too much hassle for this computer technician.

Take Care