Help! AW 14 AC Adapter not detected in bios and not showing as plugged in or charging when plugged!

Hello bros, my AW 14 just stopped charging. It says in the bios that the ac adapter is unknown, undetected and when plugged in, it shows the blue ring light around power cord but doesn't charge or show as plugged. I did try another AC adapter to no avail. It runs fine on battery. Do I have to replace my whole motherboard to fix this problem or just replace the AC power jack which is not soldered onto the AW 14 Haswell models? I'm hoping I don't have to replace the motherboard as it is more expensive to do that compared to buying the AC power jack for $25.00. Any ideas? I tried every solution like resetting battery, unplugging battery and hold power button for 30 seconds. Like I said, it runs fine on battery and when I take out battery and try to run through AC power directly, it doesn't power up. Any help is appreciated.

 

Did any of your Coke Zero get anywhere near the power jack when you spilled it? - did you try removing the jack and cleaning up the pins? - as you probably know, Dell use proprietary technology when it comes to PSU's - if the 'handshake' to check it's an official Dell charger isn't happening for some reason, it won't play nice. Maybe your Coke is the culprit!

If that didn't work, I'd certainly try a new power jack at $25 over a new board......

 

I would try as brother StevieJones suggested. If that does not work then the DC jack would be the next logical step.

 

Yes. I did clean out pins but to no avail. Could it still be a motherboard problem even if it turns on fine running on just battery or is it most likely I just need a new jack? I'm glad the jack isn't soldered onto the AW 14 Haswell models. That would've been a pain in the butt.

 

If everything is working fine except charging, I'd assume the mobo is okay. I think the charging 'handshaking' with the PSU is done at bios/EC level - the system 'recognises' the charger via the signal sent when you plug in the cord, via the central pin. As far as I can see, the only thing that could possibly corrupt that signal would be the power in jack connected to the mobo - thankfully, via a removable connector. The only way I would see it being a motherboard issue is if the socket on the board that the power jack connector plugs into is in some way defective......I think it would be pretty hard to try and clean the terminals inside that soldered on socket, and if they are the reason the signal is not getting correctly identified, then that's when it starts getting expensive.....unless you can possibly clean those terminals.

I'd try the $25 replaceable power socket first and also the jack on the PSU as Brother Luis said - if that doesn't work, you could see if you could somehow clean up the inside of the socket that the power socket plugs into on the mobo......failing that....hmmmm......doesn't look good, I'd imagine.

 

Yeah I forgot to mention that some liquid did spill near the jack port which may have circuited it somehow but when cleaning the mobo I did not notice any liquid near the connector part where the DC jack connects to on the motherboard. Keeping my fingers crossed till I get the DC jack in the mail in the next few days. Pray for me. haha

Thanks for the help by the way on both my mishaps. I’ll make sure to give you some Rep +1 points.

 

I'll keep my fingers crossed for ya, buddy....hope that the new port is all it takes!

 

Well. Bad news guys. I replaced dc jack but still not turning on via adapter or charging battery. : ( Really lost for words right now. Thinking about selling it for parts. Any other suggestions you all have to revive it? Even if I did replace motherboard nobody has it on eBay for parts just yet.


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

Man, that's not good news - I don't know what else you could do. Did you try and clean out the socket on the mobo that the dc jack plugs in to? - other than that, I'm stumped. Did you do a power drain/remove cmos battery etc? - also, I've seen a couple on Ebay right now....this one seems to be the best, but it ain't what I'd call cheap - maybe an offer on it if you fancied it.

DELL Alienware 14 R1 Haswell i7 Motherboard NVIDIA GT 765M 2KVD5 / LA-9201P | eBay

 

Thanks for the link. Could't find one by myself. That is actually pretty cheap to me. Lol Im thinking maybe just to wait till there is an AW 14 with a GTX 860M card.


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

Actually, I was gonna edit my post and say just that....

Probably doubtful you'd want this, but here is a cheap board - albeit GT750m: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-GENUI...9?pt=UK_Motherboards_CPUs&hash=item2a3ca78b15

 

Thanks man. I will do one last clean on the the actual connector part on motherboard where DC jack connects to as a last resort. I didn't thoroughly clean it well the first time so will dampen and wet that part real good with alcohol and let it sit and dry for a couple days.

I heard the GTX 860M is a serious overclocker and can reach GTX 870M levels.


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

I hope a last resort clean works for you. I've heard similar about the 860m, it'll be interesting to see what gives with a 14 refresh.

 

Yeah, I'm hoping it will work. Last night I tried to pour a little more alcohol than usual on microfibre cloth and used for the first time a cotton swab to get to the hard to reach places on that DC connector part on motherboard. The cotton swab was still a little big to fit in there so planning to use some some sort of toothpick or toothbrush to reach those hard spots on the DC connector part on motherboard.

Kinda sucks as I loved the AW 14 performance especially since I upgraded the CPU to the i7 4930MX CPU. Great little guy.

 

Just a thought, but I use medical sterets to clean off old thermal compound. They are ~70 IPA and are a small square of fabric type material - much like a wet-wipe. They are normally used prior to an injection to clean the skin but they work fine for computer use, too. As a Q-tip might be too bulky to fit in, you could uses a steret folded over the end of a toothpick - that should allow you to get in a bit deeper into that socket....you can probably get them from a local chemist/pharmacy/drug store. It also means you don't have to worry about excess liquid as they are pre-soaked....

 

Well the thorough clean didn't work. *sigh* I am thinking about using a hair dryer around the DC jack connector board to revive it?


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

It is weird because when I plug AC adapter to laptop the blue light on my AC adapter stays on. If it were really a mobo problem wouldn't the AC adapter light turn off as soon as I plug it in?


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

I'm not really sure that the hair dryer approach would accomplish much. As for the light on the jack, mine stays lit when its plugged it at the wall - regardless of wether it is physically inserted into the machine......

 

Because when I first spilled coke the ac adapter light would turn off as so as I plug it in.


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

Have you got a spare PSU to try?

 

I will try that next.


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

BTW, I traded in my i7 4700MQ CPU, AMD mobility 5870 card and my partially working AW 14 GTX 765M board for a fully working AW 14 GTX 765M board.

Couldn't wait long enough for the AW 14 860M board so I jumped on this trade offer.

I get it today in mail so will update if I get it working again.


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

Nice one, Bro. Let's hope you are back up and running in no time at all. It sucks that we are still waiting for a GPU upgrade for the 14...I wonder if or when we will ever see it happen.....

 

Yeah I didn't want this trade offer to go by since it would give me a working computer right now with not much cash sacrificed.

Plus the GTX 765M is still a fairly good card.


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

It's a shame I didn't see this earlier - if the charger light went off when you plugged it in before you cleaned it that means you had a short between the live and ground within the machine caused by the liquid spill. With this kind of short you can cause all kinds of problems - in all Dell machines there is an IC which does the communicating with the charger - it would be my guess that you hadn't cleaned this IC properly or the IC was damaged with the spill. It is essential after ANY spill not to connect the machine to power as that is what causes the damage - if you clean it up straight away without trying to turn it on or charge it then there is very little chance of causing damage.
I hope though that your new board is fitted and working ok!

 

New board is working great! You are right. The IC cause damaged.

Sent from my LG-VS410PP using Tapatalk 2