laptop not charging

[Artemis@BC]

Arrgh. My laptop is showing as running on battery only, even though it's plugged in.

So ... is this more likely to be a problem with the charging cord, or the battery? It's the original battery, just under 4 years old.

TIA!

 

[suep1963]

Maybe try taking the battery out and powering up with just the charger plugged in

 

[Simone411]

That's what happened with the older Dell laptop that I have. The battery icon in on the taskbar showed it wasn't charging at all, and the little battery light continually stayed on. I keep the adapter/charger plugged into my laptop without the battery and it works fine. The older laptop was around 5 years old when the battery stopped working.

 

[Artemis@BC]

Aaaaand ... now it's showing power again and charging.

I'm reluctant to monkey with anything while it's working, but the next time the charge stops I'll try popping out the battery.

Thanks for your prompt replies, I knew I could count on you.

 

[once_upon]

I would also question the charger. I'vemently had to replace a couple.

 

[Artemis@BC]

If it's the charger, that's easy to replace and not too expensive. I'm worried though that it's the charger port, which would be much more of a nuisance.

Anyway, fingers crossed for now ...

 

[vesperholly]

My old HP laptop charger died on me about 2.5 years in, so it could definitely be that. Replaced the cord and all was back to normal. The laptop lasted about 4.5 years until it finally died of some kind of software BS that I couldn't fix, but I never had an issue with charging again.

 

[Xela M]

If it's the charger, that's easy to replace and not too expensive. I'm worried though that it's the charger port, which would be much more of a nuisance.

Anyway, fingers crossed for now ...

It was the charger port in my case. I took it to a local repair store (the kind that repairs/sells old computers) and they fixed it in a day and it wasn't expensive at all.

 

[judiz]

Happened to me with my Dell, had to replace the battery and eventually the laptop

 

[quartz]

Last week I got yogurt in the charging port of my iPad. Have you checked for yogurt?

 

[Simone411]

Happened to me with my Dell, had to replace the battery and eventually the laptop

I'm just crossing my fingers that nothing ever happens to my adapter/charger plug on my old one. I got it in 2006 which makes that laptop 10 years old and it's still working. Years ago, I added new memory chips to speed it up a little. It has 2 GB of memory which doesn't seem like a lot in the present time. I use the old Dell to make my videos with because I like the old Movie Maker. I added what's called the k-Lite Codec pack (Full) where I could convert the videos in Movie Maker to several different formats. I also use Firefox for a browser if I go online with it because IE 8 is outdated now. It will take JAVA updates, but I always receive a message that says the update may not work with IE 8. The Firefox browser works great, however.

I don't even know if there are parts that I can get for my old Dell. It's an Inspiron B130 with Celeron M "inside". PML! I have Windows XP SP3 on it and I'm surprised that it's still working as well as it does.

I told one of the Dell techs once that it still worked great and the tech freaked out. He couldn't believe that it was still working.

 

[Artemis@BC]

Last week I got yogurt in the charging port of my iPad. Have you checked for yogurt?

Now darn it, why didn't I think of that?

I did actually spill soup on it -- well, actually near it with a bit of splashing -- a year or two ago, but luckily that didn't affect anything.