Member Avatar for daltic

Hi,

I have a 3 year old Dell Inspiron E1505. A few weeks ago I noticed that my battery was nearly dead and wasn't being charged by the laptop, despite having the AC adaptor plugged in (and the battery was cool to the touch, so no power was even going to it). I've tried replacing the battery, but obviously it wasn't a bad battery like I had hoped. The laptop works perfectly on AC power, and if I unplug it from AC power, it will run off the replacement battery (which was halfway charged when I tested it). I hit F2 on startup to enter the BIOS menu and check out the facts on the battery. It recognizes the battery and says it's operating normally, but for AC adaptor, it says Unknown Device Installed. The adaptor I'm using is the original Dell adaptor that came with my laptop. Any ideas on what the issue may be and how I can solve it? If possible I'd like to DIY this one (I do have experience soldering circuit boards, if need be, but I've never done this type of surgery on a computer)

I really appreciate any insight you may have to offer!

Thanks,
D

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by charonjr
Member Avatar for daltic

I don't think I made it clear, but the new battery isn't being charged either, even though the laptop is plugged into the AC power (in turn plugged into a working outlet) and the battery is inserted. I'm not familiar with how computer circuitry or anything is, but to me it seems like an internal problem since as far as I can tell, both the AC adaptor and the battery work, and both will power the laptop without issue, but for whatever reason, batteries are not receiving charge.

Member Avatar for caperjack

i recently had that problem with my laptop and it was the universal power adapter i was using ,it would run the computer but would not charge the battery ,i bought a new generic replacement adapter on e-bay and solved my problem,yours maybe be different !

Member Avatar for charonjr

Dell AC adapters have a central pin, like a coax cable. The pin identifies the adapter to the bios. If the pin is broken or damaged, the bios can't identify the adapter and won't allow charging of the battery. The only thing to do is to get a new Dell AC charger from ebay.

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