Dell complaints

[STBEAR007]

Hey There,
I have the Dell inspiron 1150 2 years old now. For the last several months, so it seemed that it was only one battery, was not charging properly. I barely use this laptop so thought I had a defective battery. out of two I purchased with the system.

I have 2 of the extended batteries (12 cell 96WHr)

PROBLEM When I plug in the power pack usually no lights until I play around with it a few times then it shows the green battery light charging. After a few minutes or like maybe an hour later I get the Power (the first light out of the 3 is I think the power light?) and battery light flashing. So if now both batteries are not charging as far as I can tell I can not start up laptop. This is strange and am hoping if anyone might know the answer to this please. I appreciate any and all help to this matter.

As I said I barely used this laptop and things have just been getting stranger and stranger with it. Also man does it run hot when I am on it for awhile...I just bought a cooler plate for the bottom to help out a few weeks ago to help out and now this...lol. Go figure.

Thanks,
STBEAR007

BTW I have a 90W-AC adapter could this be a problem not matching the battery specs?
Thanks Again

[diashto]

There's a good chance that your charging port has broken free from the motherboard.

if you wiggle the powercord, and the actual jack itself moves, that's a pretty good indication... solution is motherboard replacement.

[STBEAR007]

btw i JUST TOOK OUT BATTERY AND TRIED ALONE WITH JUST THE POWER PACK. iF i HOLD THE BUTTON IT FLICKERS ALL 3 LEDS AND THEN EVENTUALLY STARTS TO READ THROUGH bios (a07) Sorry about cap lock on...

Anyways...It starts to boot until half way through BIOS read (slowly) and shuts down again with no battery installed? So this must not be a battery issue? Strange all of a sudden it quits. Although for several months I was having this issue with just one battery and now the other and now even when just plugged straight in to power plug(not knowing I can plug in without the battery)....it wants to start then out it goes while SLOWLY reading BIOS?


Anything on this issue?

Thanks Again

STBEAR007

[diashto]

Definately sounds like a motherboard issue to me - at least, whenever i've talked ot a customer with that issue, it's been for a motherboard replacement call, and the replacement seemed to resolve the issue.

[STBEAR007]

Great Wonder how much they cost...Thanks for the info.
I have built many of desktops but never a laptop. I assume I can use my cpu on the new one...or is a laptop cpu built in.

STBEAR007

[diashto]

For that model, the motherboard runs about $400-$600 new, bout $150-300 on ebay from a system pull.

F3542 is the part number to search for.

You are correct, the CPU and all the other bits transfer over. Its not that difficult to replace, althuogh for the cost of the motherboard you're probably better off just getting a brand new laptop.

Your other option is to attempt to resolder the board, but that's way beyond my ken, and I wouldnt reccomend it.

As always, replacing almost any part on your computer by yourself voids the manufacturer's warrantee.

[STBEAR007]

edit

[STBEAR007]

wow not worth it but I still owe 1 year on it...lol. Lovely that your (well known issue I can see from many forums) laptop doesn't even live up to at least it's last payment.

I know a few guys here that do work on laptops game consoles etc...I will have to figure out how to get the MB out to see where the loose solder might be at. There probably is a step by step procedure out there somewhere...I will search when I get more time.

I see there is something about plastic/metal tabe that should be removed somewhere (can't think off the top of my head at the moment) and that the connections come loose at the power adapter area...

Strange how this has been going on for several months (not enough to tell something was wrong though...as it only did this with my backup battery and nothing else) till bang out of the blue DEAD!

Thanks again for the help and information,
STBEAR007

[KE7EHA]

OK, I have experience doing rework on circuit boards. Actually, I've designed a few boards myself too.

The first thing you need to find out: surface mount or through hole. Judging from the damage, I would say surface mount jack, as the connections aren't as mechanically sound as a through hole jack.

you'll need a decent soldering iron, preferably temperature-controlled, but it must have a small tip. No barrel-tip radio shack iron, you'll never be able to do any surface mount with one. Try and get one that's rectangular, with the tip being about 1mm wide, and maybe .5mm thick. If you want, you gan go a little bigger than this, but not much. Liquid flux is also necessary, and a cleaning agent is required if the flux is corrosive.

general procedure:

apply some liquid flux to the joint that is to be soldered. Melt some solder onto the iron, and touch the iron to the joilt. The liquid flux should boit away, and the solder should be pulled onto the joint. Repeat this untill all joints are soldered. After all joints are soldered, clean the board with some cleaner, such as isopropyl alcohol.

If you do follow these directions, know that I am not responsible if you screw up your own board. just be careful. If you can do this right, you can potentially save some money.

If you don't want to do this yourself, there might be someone in your general area who might do it for you.
_________________
"The art of Engineering is knowing what you can safely ignore." -Dr. H. Hess

[STBEAR007]

Well thanks for all the help and info....I took the whole comp apart. Put all back together again and damn lights were flashing again. Enough of this I farted around with the power packpluged it into a direct wall plug instead of a power bar. Well one battery completely recharged (well it says 88%) and right now I am charging the other one while it's in the mood to charge...lol.

Computer boots up fine with the first charged battery...Will see what happens after next one does and then will try with just the power adapter.

BTW I cut off the plastic tabs on the "C" cover as the 5150's explained to do...YES THERE was presure on the same chip as they stated for that model...YOU COULD SEE IT! The cover of that chip was depressed where these plastic clips lied on it. Same design flaw I guess.

I will post results time to time on progress till DELL has that class action on them as they did with the 5150's


Thanks Again,
STBEAR007

[Laptopg33k]

Have any trouble again you might want to drain the battery completely i meen completely to where the computer just dies, disable the low power hibernation and it might fix it because it worked for me when it wouldnt charge my inspiron 1100

[KE7EHA]

This will only have the possible chance of resetting the internal charge counter circuit connected to the battery, in fact, I don't believe that it will do anything at all. The newer battery chemistries, apecifically the Li Ion batteries used in laptops, do not have a cell memory. They can, however, be destroyed by a deep cycle.

The problem here is probably a loose connector, as has been said earlier. Hardware's about the only thing that can cause an intermittent fault, and a loose connection is about as intermittent as it can get.
_________________
"The art of Engineering is knowing what you can safely ignore." -Dr. H. Hess

[Laptopg33k]

Well it was similar i tell you because the battery light on my inspiron 1100 kept flashing green then orange 5 times and it wouldnt charge i thought i had one of those explodeing ones +_+

[STBEAR007]

Well so far after I got the first battery to charge finally then the back up...I was able to start computer and pushe the Fn and LCD/CRT button...it all of a sudden detected the power pack and all has been working normally. Strange but seems good now...We will see over time.
STBEAR007

[STBEAR007]

Well I did this myself and the LAPTOP has been running great...no problems and I have been testing it daily now instead of the blue moon use it was getting..

THANKS VERY MUCH FOR THE HELP AND INFO...WORKS GREAT!