T i m wrote:
Hi all,

I have asked elsewhere but I think this may be more an electronics
than computer question as such so:

A couple of years ago daughter b/f bought a Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop
and it has been running ok till just recently when his Mum caught the
power lead somehow.

From then on it still runs ok from the power adaptor / PSU but it
doesn't seem to want to charge the battery. What could be part of the
same issue is it now flashes the front power indicator with what looks
like 4 fast amber flashes and one longer white.

Going into the BIOS tells us that it thinks the battery is there and
'healthy' but is not charging and at 0%.

We tried another battery and psu from a different 1545 (that had a
broken DC socket) but that didn't change anything.

Yesterday, thinking it /could/ be a socket and where the tiny inner /
3rd pin connects (thinking it might be a 'sense' wire and a socket was
cheap etc) I changed it for him but again, no improvement.

I think it still runs from the battery but of course it's now flat
(coincidentally a mate is considering getting a Dell 1545 so we might
be able to do some testsg).

So, is there anything else we could do to try to work out what's going
on here please? I still have some test gear from my 'daze' as a
support tech (DMMs, scope, fc, bench PSU etc).

Cheers, T i m




I encountered the same symptoms with a Toshiba Satellite laptop my son
had. Your problem might be totally unrelated, but here is what I found:
Toshiba had a problem with the connector they used for the external PS
coming loose on the mother board. Soldering or repairing that connector
did NOT solve all the problems, as like your computer, it would run from
the PS but not charge the battery. It seems my son (knowing nothing
about electronic repair) thought it would be useful to push something
into the case in the area of the power connector, and unknowingly
damaged a surface mounted transistor. I measured the voltages at the
damaged SMD and determined that it needed to be an NPN and what it
needed to withstand voltage and current wise. When I replaced the
transistor it worked fine.

As I said above, your problem might be totally unrelated, but you might
look for any damaged components in the vicinity of the power connector.
Quite a coincidence that the symptoms are identical.