9400 power problems

Here's one I can't find in an existing thread. Ever since I took my laptop out of the box (3 months ago) it will not turn on unless the AC is plugged into the wall. Without AC I don't even get to post from off or hibernate. I can hear the dvd-drive spin momentarily, the WiFi light flashes for half a sec then everything goes dead. The computer will restart with out AC, but if I turn it off and wait more than a couple minutes, no dice.

With AC, it boots up everytime, and I can remove the AC as soon as I see the Dell splash screen and it will run off the battery for +2hrs.

Dell Quickset was uninstalled a couple of weeks after I got it. I flashed to the newest BIOS a couple weeks ago. The power icon in the sys tray goes from batter to AC when it should.

Any ideas I could try out before I get in line at the help desk or does this sound like a motherboard issue?

Thanks.

 

hmmmm, interesting problem.

is the battery perhaps loose?

 

It has always run off the battery, after I use the AC to turn it on. Would a loose battery affect powerup, even though it will still run fine after?

 

i wasn't sure if the problem was intermittent or not.

if it's 100% that you can't boot on battery alone, but it's ok >a/c, then yeah, it's probably not the problem.

it's such an odd behavior that i hesitate to say that
it does sound like a hardware problem. if it was a hardware problem, i would assume that it would never run off battery regardless of whether you start with a/c or not. however, i wouldn't be surprised if it was.

 

I had a different problem, but I suspected the battery was at fault. I rang Dell, and they shipped one to me by the next day. Give them a ring, what have you got to lose?

 

Thanks for your comments. I'll try Dell support, see what they have to say.

 

It kinda sounds like the problem I was having, be it mine came about accidently,but SouthernGirl suggested I flash the BIOS and haven't had the problem since(I see you already did that). I'd be interested to see if that fixes the problem rye_guy could you post again to let me know??

 

I checked the Dell site and flashed to BIOS A04, it says it was released last week sometime. Still the same issue.

If it helps, when I try to power on with just the battery I can hear the fans and HD spinning, and the power light comes and stays on, but the screen is off. If I power off, then plug in and push the power button again everything turns on right away. I thought for awhile it was just the LCD not turning on, but nothing else responds when it's "on" (keyboard, media direct button, speaker, touchpad). So I'm pretty sure it's not just the LCD.

Not sure if that's of any use to anyone, but it's nice to vent