laptop baterry charging problem
 

I know next to nothing about computors and this is my first laptop a Dell inspiron 1545. new in june.
The thing has worked well untill last week I saw that the battery was not charging. I get the message...

The AC power adapter type cannot be determined. Your system will operate slower and the battery will not charge. Please connect a Dell 65W AC adapter or higher for best system operation.

The adapter that came with the laptop is plugged in, the blue light on it is on and the screen is brighter when it is plugged in and a check with a voltage meter shows 20.5v at the plug.
anyone know how to fix this please.

Take the battery out and plug the power in to see what happens. If it works its a duff battery. If not, its a duff power connector (either on the laptop itself or the power supply)

Just tried that now. It works with battery removed, but also with just battery alone with no ac power. I have been using the laptop once a week soley on the battery, as I read in a post here ages ago you should drain the battery to about 10-15% capacity and recharge rather than just use ac power all the time. At present it has 72%power remaiming

You can make that error by half removing the power supply. Is it plugged in properly to the laptop? It is more than likely the power supply is at fault.

I have similair problems sometimes. When booting up you can go into the bios and turn off the laptop searching for power adapter type, thiis should stop it.

Just got off a Dell help line. It seems the adapter is at fault and they will send me a new one tomorrow. Nice to have a three year warranty. Dont quite understand how it can power the laptop, but not charge the battery :confused:. Thanks for the info anyway.

dell did have a fault on their power supply sockets on some models, i had this problem, adaptor lead is now soldered to motherboard.....no more problem!

Got to say Im very impressed with Dell customer service. I was online to them yesterday at 2pm and the new adapter got here this morning at 10.30 via City Link. Good to know some sellers still value their customers after the sale is made.