Plugged in, not charging + BIOS not accessible

Which system do you own?

I will recommend you to perform a power drain (remove the ac adapter and the battery and hold the power button for 10 seconds).

If the issue persists flash the BIOS to the latest version.

Dear Milena,

I own an Alienware 17, windows 8.1 (battery embedded).

I did perform power drain, no results. Can't flash the BIOS because can't access to it, so I don't feel confident in flashing without having accessed it al least once.

Any other suggestion?

Thanks a bunch!

Hello,

Bad news buddy....

I've got the same issue, researched this for ages and it's a problem that many people have.  For some, a simple power drain will help, for others it doesn't. It helped me for a few days, however till this day the problem persists.

Getting a new power cord won't help, as my laptop is at "1% battery, plugged in, not charging" meaning I cannot do certain things due to power level restrictions. (running certain tests in bios, driver upgrades etc all require at least 10% battery life)

I've tried everything that you probably did or will do as well....the Dell/Alienware horrible built quality is an issue for a lot of people apparently.  

I now have a new power cable/cord which doesn't charge the computer, so you either live with it, or send it over to Alienware and have them bill you hundreds of dollars for god knows what.  My guess is it's a faulty mother board.

I called Alienware about this and other issues that I'm having and they were not able to help without me having to send the computer to them and paying in excess of 500$ to fix it, not including the costs of shipping and parts. 

Best of luck with Dell.

Dear Milena,   I own an Alienware 17, windows 8.1 (battery embedded).   I did perform power drain, no results. Can't flash the BIOS because can't access to it, so I don't feel confident in flashing without having accessed it al least once.   Any other suggestion?   Thanks a bunch!

It’s weird that you are not able to enter into the BIOS when pressing F2 at the start up.

The only two ways to try to fix the problem are

Doing a power drain

Flashing the BIOS                                                                    

Otherwise you will need to replace the Ac adapter and the battery since there is no way to determine which is the part failing as we are not able to get into de BIOS. 

i

Hi, have you tried a complete power drain?

Disconnecting the AC power and battery will only give you a flea power drain, not a 100% drain. The CPU will still retain power/charge and therefor memory

The M17x R2/3/4's all had similar issues with batteries not charging, if there is no underlying fault and it's just the CPU is a little "confused" then a COMPLETE power drain may fix the issue, the other alternative is uninstalling Alienware Command Center AND Alienware OSD. Restart then reinstall both programs.

Alienware OSD software has some control over the battery charging, but it's a VERY tempremental program and sometimes needs to be reinstalled.

To do a COMPLETE power drain follow the instructions in the link below to remove the coin cell battery.

Just to recap, a complete power drain requires the AC power, main battery AND coin cell battery to be disconnected for at least 20 minutes

Page 17 - Remove coin cell battery

ftp://ftp.dell.com/Manuals/all-products/esuprt_laptop/esuprt_alienware_laptops/alienware-17_Owner%27s%20Manual_en-us.pdf

Hi,

Yes, i've done that months ago as it was something that helps temporarily, i think i even mentioned it in my first post, not sure anymore.  

I did reinstall and command center along with the my whole Windows 7 so that didn't help.   

Thanks for giving it a try.  Unforunetly the quality build of this machine is not just up the par i guess, the lights stopped working ages ago, after reinstalling my windows months ago I wasn't able to install Microsoft Office....WHICH i paid for...I don't have it intstalled till this day.  I've spent quite a few pounds calling Microsoft as well as dell yet no one was able to help me so....I've just given up.    

If anyone else has any clever ideas, do post.....

Thanks.

I can only relate my experience, as narrow as it is.   I also had an issue with,  "83 percent charged.   Plugged in not charging."  My "senior moment" memory is a bit flaky, but I am also pretty sure that the CPUID HWMonitor thought that the battery would hold a far larger charge than it was initially designed for.   Take a look at that.

As I still have Warranty (in first year, although I purchased two years Warranty)   Late one night I called Alienware support, who did the remote Desktop thing, reinstalled the BIOS, and some other things.  The said a tech would come to my house to replace parts.    Thirty hours later I was astonished when techie called and said he was in route.   He came in, replaced Battery.  I felt he was very competent.  He wanted to look at BIOS and like you, had trouble getting the thing to start into BIOS.   Trick is, power off the computer, hold down the function key you want, then power it on.  The computer is so quick it flies by the opportunity to see your touching the Function Key you want a fraction of a second later.  

Might need to get something in the BIOS to re set to get the battery back into charging.   Else it thinks it should be thorugh,   I  dunno.   

I was concerned with wobble where the charger cord plugs into the computer.  He said the name for the broken part, if it was broken, was DC Connector.  Has some plastic pieces which are meant to keep it straight.   As I felt I should be thorough in allowing Alienware to look at that area to see if it might be involved with Battery problem, and because the tech advised that the my laptop should have some more extensive testing done at the Repair Depot, I sent my Alienware 14 in.  They replaced some kind of Cable, not sure which one.  Might be they just swapped in a new charger adapter and connector, which is outside the Alienware 14, and I thought was functioning.  

No matter, my Alienware is functioning just fine now.   After it went to factory.  I have avoided making changes, like to how the Video Drivers should function without being plugged in. 

With some requests and explanations on my part as to why I did not have the original cards with Windows, and M$ Office Activation codes, Dell-Alienware-Sales Support furnished those activation codes to me.  Although I do have an original back up to when I first got it.  Not sure if i went through the misery of doing a back up of current, reinstall of oldest backup, and could look at M$ Office that I could find the Office Activation Code, that it would be visible.  

Used to be that Windows COA and Office activation codes were on stickers on the back of the computer.   One nice thing about the change, if someone steals my Alienware, they will not be much able to use it.   They can not easily hack the login for Windows 8, and they can NOT reinstall my Windows 8, unless they know where I hid the cards, and got into my house.

Not sure how any of this helps you.  

Except, hold down the correct function key you want, BIOS, Windows repair,  then hit the power button to on.   I did want a fast computer.

I have read on the forum of others with light issues, that they function off a BIOS subsystem of their own, and one must go through some kind of procedure to install that subsystem in place of the regular BIOS.   However, the I would not be surprised that Alienware has gotten the light issue fixed to the point where a reinstall of BIOS, and maybe drivers, fixes the light issue in a functioning MOBO. 

I have a sense, that much of what I have seen on this forum, and on my Alienware 14 relates more to Windows, and how it connects to drivers than Alienware Hardware.  I expected that to have state of the art hardware, I would have more issues than if I bought a more standard lower speed machine.  Frustrations also have to do with expectations. 

Even my battery replacement might be from some kind issue where I had started a re-charge, that is, I started it at 17 percent, and somehow that some piece of software thought that was the zero point for recharge.     Notice also that a right click on the battery has an unusual option where it will not always recharge when the computer is in some kind of mode.  I know that Windows, for some drivers, gets it software switches messed up, which is the suggestion to turn things related to power to different positions and reboot, then turn them to another position and reboot.   

I suspect the Alienware rep will help you more than I did.   Best wishes, and let us know what you find out.

Hello everybody,

More bad news ...

I have an Alienware m14x. My original Dell battery died about two months ago. I could not find a replacement battery at support.dell.com. I got a battery form a third party at eBay. The battery looks fine and all the specs matches with the original one. But the BIOS tells me that this is a Non-Dell battery and system would not charge it!

In fact, it does not. I've tried that power reset technique several times. It comes up with random results, but still "plugged-in, not charging". I have installed all the updates from Dell website, including the BIOS update, disabled BIOS battery warning, etc, etc. Useless!

I have reached to the support department several times. No luck with them; they are not willing to help. My computer has been under warranty for the first two years, and it is out of warranty just for the last two or three months. Furthermore, this does not have anything to do with warranty. All I need is a genuine replacement battery which they refuse to provide; most probably because of a faulty motherboard, which has been faulty from the beginning, but of course does not show itself till you need a new battery; or for whatever other reason, god knows.

I am also quite surprised + disappointed how Dell/Alienware treats their customers. I have been Dell customer over the past 7-8 years and have got several laptops from them. I was quite happy with them till this recent incident. They have been quite neglectful, sometimes rude, and totally irresponsible with this issue.

I have wasted hours and hours with Dell support and with my Dell Alienware laptop to fix this simple issue. No luck!

Good luck to you guys any way!

Ps:

I went a bit farther today, and tried to repair the original battery (because the system still properly detects that battery), and replace the battery cells. I managed to open the case, but cannot proceed further. All the battery cells are welded and cannot be simply replaced. I do not recommend this to others.