Dell Latitude Power Problems

I have a Dell Latitude CPx 650. Replaced the HD. The battery is charged but the laptop is flashing the power warning light when on A/C adaptor. Without A/C, the laptop goes dead although the battery is fully charged.

Any ideas?

 

How do you know the battery is charged?

Just because it's been plugged in for a while wouldn't necessarily mean the battery is charged. There is a power module inside the laptop that controls all of the power. When plugged in, it splits the power to charge the battery and run the machine at the same time. When not plugged in it switches the computer to battery power. It's not uncommon for these modules to fail.

The other possibility is that your battery is toast.

Either problem could cause the symptoms you described.

 

I figured out that the BIOS needed updating since it was so old that it configured power management for Win98 OS. Thus, the system was not managing power correctly under XP and was draining the battery.

Will a dead battery also cause errors in the system although it's running on A/C adaptor? Wondering if power varies without a good battery.

Also, do you know if it's worth it to replace the power module?

Thanks.

 

I'm not sure what your saying in your first paragraph. Are you thinking the BIOS update damaged the power module? I would say probably not. The improper management of power by WinXP was possibly the fault of a bad battery.

Yes a bad battery can cause irratic voltage in your computer if you have a totaly shot battery or no battery and that will almost always cause problems with the OS.

As far as replacing the power module, it depends on the age of the computer and the cost if the module. I would suggest checking eBay for a machine with perhaps a bad screen and swaping parts to make a good on. You would probably save money.

 

i had a similar problem with my laptop...the BIOS had a fault where if the battery was full discharged, it would not charge at all....just a simple BIOS update corrected the problem

 

After updating the BIOS, the system runs OK when I remove the second 256mg ram chipset. When I tested it with second 256 ram chip installed, it experiences faults.

I'm not sure if it's the dead battery that is causing this problem due to erratic voltage. Would the additional RAM do this?

I guess I'll find out after I get the new battery in the next day or so...

any thoughts?

 

Yes the RAM can cause problems. If the RAM modules are of different barnds, they may just be incompatible. If they are of different BUS speeds they are almost certainly going to cause problems. Or 1 of them may simply be bad.