Dell Inspiron 1501 not charging

rose28454

I have a Dell Inspiron 1501 and have replaced both battery and charging lead since I have had it. It is about 4 years old. For some time it has only worked with the lead plugged in and does not charge. However it will no longer charge and wont even work with the lead plugged in. The green light is on on the adaptor part. Tonight I tried someone else's lead who has the same computer and that did not work either. I have tried taking out the battery and putting it back. When I do that it switches on for a minute and then goes off. Should I assume it is the battery?

rdpro

the battery is flat and not receiving any charge (when Dell laptops don't recognise an adapter, they prevent any charge going to the battery) - by what you've told me regarding different adapters, it's obviously a motherboard failure - fairly common I'm afraid.

You could try calling Dell - they often 'renew' a warranty and will fix under that (e.g., £90 for an extension vs. £200 for a non-warranty fix). Depends on how you value your laptop

spikedouglas

See if some nice shop will let you try a new battery to see if that's the issue. From what you say I'd guess it was. If new battery doesn't work, then perhaps the computer itself is shot; but I'd try the battery first - and try a Dell branded one. The flicker suggests a knakered battery.

dragon934

i agree with rdpro, have had a few of these repairs recently, I think its a combination of running laptops in the warm air and leaving them on beds/sofas to cook gently! I find usually there are 2 integrated chips (little black square chips about 5x5mm with about 8 legs) parallel to each other and located on the mainboard near the charge socket, one will have a helpfull part number on it, and the other a nasty black scorch mark where there was one an identical number. Replacing these are a little tricky to the novice though, but at least if you buy the part yourself you could find a decent solderer (old tv repair guy) who might want a go instead of being ripped off by a dodgy IT Tech, assuming they'd even try to repair it without selling you a new board.

Points to note: The laptop will almost certainly have to be stripped right down to access the area to work on. IF you can do it yourself (and reassemble without having "spare" parts) then that could save some cash.
There is no gaurantee that the chip didn't blow because of some other fault, and a botched repair job can really kill your mother board.
Symptoms of this fault can be:
no charging battery,
no charging battey, but charging light remains on indefinately, so it looks like its charging.
laptop usually powers on when a fully charged battery is inserted, but obviously drains despite being plugged in.

I know i've gone a bit overboard with the repairing technique, but I thought it would help weigh up the cost if you knew how much work would have to go in to repairing the board (assuming its the fault in question)
Just an extra point I buy these sort of chips in 2's and they cost about £7 for 2. (they're actually a lot cheaper for firms to buy in bulk)

To cut a long story short if you can find a £3.50 part, a competent solderer who ows you a favour, and can dismantle your notebook confidently yourself you could save your precious laptop from the dustbin, If not your looking at a repair bill in the high £60s to 100. Motherboard will set you back the same unless your lucky enough to find a second hand one, and even then it will need fitting which takes almost the same amount of work as taking the old one out to solder it in the first place.
But thats just my opinion, as you can tell I hate throwing away things if I think there's life in them.

Good Luck

rose28454

I got it to work for a while but now it wont charge at all. If i leave it plugged for a few hours it will allow me to switch it on for a few minutes but then goes off. Battery light shows as red all this time. Went to my local techie guy who says we could just put a piece of foam or such like to hold the charger socket in place ( as it is a bit wobbly). Tried this but could not make it better. So am taking out all screws to take it apart ( nothing to lose now) but it wont seem to come apart in the middle of the join half way across from the charger socket. Any ideas anyone