Dell Latitude E6430 ATG Battery light will not stay on when AC plugged in

I recently upgraded from an E6400 ATG to an E6430 ATG and I notice that with this new laptop the battery light does not stay on when the AC adapter is plugged in. The light will flash white (both the one above the keyboard and the one on the case) for a second and then go out. In Windows I can see the icon that it detects it is on AC power but the battery lights will not show it. This seems to be a departure from the way the E6400 ATG worked, if I recall correctly.

Is this standard operating behavior on Dell laptops? The battery is charged at 93%. Should I not expect to see the battery light come on until the battery reaches a certain level?

Thanks

 

Is the behavior the same when the battery capacity is lower? Like 50%?

 

I don't know I have only been using it when it is plugged in. I'm thinking the same thing you are probably, that the charger is only going to kick on after a lower level rather than a repeated top off. Do you have an E6430?

 

You could boot into the BIOS and check what are the settings for the battery charging. If it's like on the M6700, depending on the battery you have, there will be different thresholds you can set from adaptive to manual charge/discharge limits.

 

After using the laptop for a few weeks I discovered the battery light will only come on when the battery is low. So I'm guessing there is some internal circuitry that prevents it from topping off and instead favors a larger discharge before recharging.