Laptop power - Plugged in, not charging?

[noparlpf]

Dell Inspiron 7347 running Windows 10

Last week I noticed that my laptop wasn't charging when plugged in. The battery icon in the notification tray says "X% available (plugged in, not charging)". It still seems to work fine on AC power and the battery isn't being drained any further as long as it's plugged in; it just won't recharge.

-The indicator light on the power cord is lit, but I tried a different outlet anyway just to be thorough.
-I shut the computer down and left it plugged in overnight.
-I ran the built-in system diagnostics. The battery is apparently fine.
-I tried reinstalling the battery drivers through device manager.
-I tried the automatic driver update from Dell's site.
-I tried flashing the BIOS with the latest version from Dell's site because I was running a slightly older version. Now at boot I'm getting a message that the power adapter isn't recognised, so at least something finally changed, but not in the right way.

Any ideas what to try next? Send it to Dell and see if they can figure out a hardware issue with the battery or adapter?

[Seppl]

Have you tried any of the many suggestions you find when googling for "plugged in, not charging"? No success?

[factotum]

It doesn't come up with any sort of message about the adapter on startup, does it? Dell laptop adapters have circuitry in them that identifies what their rated power output is, and if something's gone wrong with that circuit then the laptops have a nasty habit of saying "I don't know how much power this adapter can safely provide, so I'm not going to draw any more power from it than I absolutely have to--and if that means I can't charge the battery, tough, you should have bought a genuine Dell adapter!". If that happens, though, you usually get a text-mode message on startup saying something along the lines of "Cannot identify this power adapter, your battery won't be charged".

[noparlpf]

Have you tried any of the many suggestions you find when googling for "plugged in, not charging"? No success?

Most of those boil down to "reinstall battery drivers" and "buy a new battery/cable."

It doesn't come up with any sort of message about the adapter on startup, does it? Dell laptop adapters have circuitry in them that identifies what their rated power output is, and if something's gone wrong with that circuit then the laptops have a nasty habit of saying "I don't know how much power this adapter can safely provide, so I'm not going to draw any more power from it than I absolutely have to--and if that means I can't charge the battery, tough, you should have bought a genuine Dell adapter!". If that happens, though, you usually get a text-mode message on startup saying something along the lines of "Cannot identify this power adapter, your battery won't be charged".

For the record, it is the original cable that came with the laptop. With the Dell stamp and whatever.
It does say something about plugging in an adapter rated for X watts (and I think it's given me two different numbers at different points, I don't remember though), but I don't think it said anything about not identifying the one that's plugged in. It definitely didn't give me any kind of useful message like "hey dude, this AC adapter is broken, stop using it." If the adapter knows it's not working properly and might not be safe, why would the computer continue to run on that adapter at all? If the computer stays powered on, your typical person is going to assume that the adapter is still working fine and go looking for problems everywhere else instead.

[factotum]

If the adapter knows it's not working properly and might not be safe, why would the computer continue to run on that adapter at all?

You'll need to address that question to Dell. I know that I had this issue with a genuine Dell power supply in my laptop earlier this year--it started coming up with the message that it couldn't identify it as a genuine Dell adapter and wouldn't charge the battery. Once I replaced the adapter it was all fine again. What's the specific message about power you're getting on startup?

[Alent]

You'll need to address that question to Dell. I know that I had this issue with a genuine Dell power supply in my laptop earlier this year--it started coming up with the message that it couldn't identify it as a genuine Dell adapter and wouldn't charge the battery. Once I replaced the adapter it was all fine again. What's the specific message about power you're getting on startup?

This problem happens fairly often, happened to my Dell laptop twice, two power bricks in a row, spaced out about a year and a half.

Try putting it to sleep, unplugging and replugging power while it's asleep. That would sometimes fake the weird dell proprietary ACPI system out on mine. (My eventual solution was to do this with a third party power brick, at which point it simply stopped caring and just charged normally while reporting that it couldn't charge.)

[factotum]

It's odd, really, because third party power bricks usually also have the "genuine Dell" circuitry--they just have it set to the highest possible value, so your laptop will think it has a 150W PSU attached when, in reality, the cheap knock-off PSU can barely provide 40W. (I have a cheap 3rd-party PSU for my work laptop which I tried to use with my home one, but it wouldn't actually provide enough power to run the laptop at full load--and this is only a Latitude D630, hardly the most power-hungry Dell laptop ever made!).

[noparlpf]

You'll need to address that question to Dell. I know that I had this issue with a genuine Dell power supply in my laptop earlier this year--it started coming up with the message that it couldn't identify it as a genuine Dell adapter and wouldn't charge the battery. Once I replaced the adapter it was all fine again. What's the specific message about power you're getting on startup?

Today it did say that the adapter wattage couldn't be determined, but I had messed with some more settings in between. I'm pretty sure before it was just asking for a 35/45W adapter. So yeah, guess I probably need a new adapter. Unless there's a way to fix the thing myself, but I'm guessing it's more like a tiny chip than a big wire I can just splice.

[noparlpf]

Just got home from Massachusetts and now the laptop is charging. The only thing I've done differently in the last two days is leave the computer and adapter in a freezing-temperature car overnight. I wonder if it'll stop charging again once they warm up a bit. I'm going to try to call Dell tomorrow and give them the message about "adapter wattage could not be determined" to see if they'll just mail me a new adapter anyway.

[Grinner]

Just got home from Massachusetts and now the laptop is charging. The only thing I've done differently in the last two days is leave the computer and adapter in a freezing-temperature car overnight. I wonder if it'll stop charging again once they warm up a bit. I'm going to try to call Dell tomorrow and give them the message about "adapter wattage could not be determined" to see if they'll just mail me a new adapter anyway.

If all else fails, you can just stick it in a freezer whenever you wish to charge it.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Pardon me if I managed to miss it, but I never actually saw a number attached to the "X% charge left" when it's not charging. Is it a number within the 80-100% range? Or does it steadily drain down when not plugged in, and simply refuses to charge?

[Iruka]

I saw this on my own Dell laptop a few times and just assumed that it was some kind of 'increase battery lifetime' mode. Doesn't make that much sense in hindsight.
What happens when you drain the battery to a low percentage and then reconnect?

[Bohandas]

Are you using all the original/correct cables? I had a tablet that wouldn't charge because I was using a cable that wasn't able to supply power faster than the tablet used it.

[PallElendro]

I had this problem a few years ago with a Dell laptop. Here's what I did.

1. Shut down computer, remove battery
2. Press the power button and hold for thirty seconds
3. Unplug the charger from the wall. I forgot this part the last time, that didn't end well.
4. Take a staple or paperclip, then bend it so that one end touches the prong, the other side touches the metal ring on the outside. I had sparks when this happened, probably because I left the thing plugged in.
5. Plug the charger back in, put the batter back in the laptop, plug the charger into the laptop, then start the computer up.