Power issue with Dell notebook

[speckytecky]

SOLVED by maniac. Notebook cream crackered due to age!

We have several Dell Lattitude 510 notebooks - two recently came back from teachers because of power loss.

The power supply seems to be fine (tried it on a working machine) but the batteries are not charging on the 2 machines in question.

They boot OK from a battery charged on another machine.

Any suggestions please?

[webman]

If you go in to the BIOS setup, it will usually tell you info about the battery - whether it is being detected, can be charged or needs replacing. In my experience, recent Dell laptops have been very flaky with batteries.

[AngryTechnician]

Do they power up on mains when plugged into the power supply?

[maniac]

I've scrapped about 20-30 Dell D510 laptops in the last year because of this problem. It's all down to the power plug on the motherboard basically wearing out, we've tried repairing them in house and we did manage to do it by replacing the plug with one from another Dell laptop, but it was damn awkward to do so we didn't bothered fixing the rest as it just wasn't worthwhile considering the age of the machines.

Mike.

[speckytecky]

Thanks Maniac,

Sounds like the exact problem.

I've scrapped about 20-30 Dell D510 laptops in the last year because of this problem. It's all down to the power plug on the motherboard basically wearing out, we've tried repairing them in house and we did manage to do it by replacing the plug with one from another Dell laptop, but it was damn awkward to do so we didn't bothered fixing the rest as it just wasn't worthwhile considering the age of the machines.

Mike.