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Question

Laptop battery advice

Feb 26, 2015 5:26AM PST

Hello all,

I have recently been trying to get my girlfriend's Dell N5110 back into working order. I am not particularly experienced in this sort of thing but everything was going well until it came to fixing the battery issues.

In summary, the battery didn't seem to be working at all. The laptop would work when the charger was in but it would say 'plugged in, not charging'. My girlfriend intends to use this on the train/for work so needs it to be portable. So I purchased a new battery thinking this would solve it. The battery arrived the other day and I plugged it in and started charging it. A couple of hours later I turned on the laptop and the batter was at 44% (plugged in, not charging). I thought this was a bad sign and sure enough, when I took the charger out, the battery slowly went down to 0%. So now I have two drained batteries (probably both functional), but for some reason can't charge either of them.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what the problem is and how to go about fixing it? I can provide more spec and details if necessary, but I doubt it will be for such a broad problem.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Try Bob's advice at link.
Feb 26, 2015 5:34AM PST
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Answer
There are two common causes and then it gets worse.
Feb 26, 2015 5:37AM PST

Dell and mind you this is all on the web uses a system to prevent non-maker chargers so if there is a break in a wire (sorry but that's as deep as I'll go due to how well this is put on the web) or if the jack is cracked this will happen. Fixes include chargers, jacks, motherboards and of course a new battery.

ANY battery over 2 years old may be toast. That doesn't seem to stop people from trying to bring them back.

I'd try a new power brick first.
Bob

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Not the charger
Feb 26, 2015 6:50AM PST

Thanks for the reply, very helpful.

So far I am fairly certain that the battery is not the issue (as I have tried two, one of them brand new) and I am pretty confident that the charger is fine (it works fine on another machine I have tried). What would you suggest the best move is from here? Replacing the jack? I don't mind doing a bit of work but obviously, if it is likely to be an expensive fix it is not worth doing.

Again, thanks in advance Happy

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Since it's a 3 wire connection,
Feb 26, 2015 7:05AM PST

Remember I'm taking it you are doing the usual search. The third wire when it doesn't connect does what you wrote. This can be the charger, connector, motherboard or even the battery.

Some rare posts claim a BIOS update has fixed a few, so that's worth a shot.
Bob