A year or more ago I was trying to diagnose problems with a Dell XPS 13
1943.
As far as I can recall it wasn't charging the battery and the light on the
front was blinking between white and orange to indicate that it didn't
have enough power to charge the battery/run.

I finally got round to looking at it again and I first checked the eternal
power supply with a multi-meter and saw that it was working and outputting
somewhere over 19V.

I then plugged it in, powered up, and pressed F5 to run diagnostics.

This said that the battery was on its last legs, but showed the 45W PSU
was working, and at the moment the battery seems to be charging.

At the moment the battery is up to 20% and still charging.

I am therefore somewhat bemused (as usual).

I will leave it with the diagnostic display showing until the battery is
fully charged, then see what it can do.

The SSD is not present - taken out to live with the new laptop - but a
replacement should be cheap.
Just checked and it is M.2 SATA so the M.2 PCI/E I have just bought won't
do, unfortunately.

I assume that it should boot off an external drive, at a minimum a Linux
distribution on a memory stick.
I have a W10 install USB memory stick so probably I could install from
that onto another external USB memory stick?
Or would that be a step too far?

Anyway, I would like to have it running under test for a while before I
shell out for a new M.2 SATA SSD.

No doubt more to follow.

Cheers

Dave R

--
AMD FX-6300 in GA-990X-Gaming SLI-CF running Windows 10 x64

On Fri, 04 Aug 2023 12:52:25 +0000, David wrote:

> A year or more ago I was trying to diagnose problems with a Dell XPS 13
> 1943.
> As far as I can recall it wasn't charging the battery and the light on
> the front was blinking between white and orange to indicate that it
> didn't have enough power to charge the battery/run.
>
> I finally got round to looking at it again and I first checked the
> eternal power supply with a multi-meter and saw that it was working and
> outputting somewhere over 19V.
>
> I then plugged it in, powered up, and pressed F5 to run diagnostics.
>
> This said that the battery was on its last legs, but showed the 45W PSU
> was working, and at the moment the battery seems to be charging.
>
> At the moment the battery is up to 20% and still charging.
<snip>

Battery is now up to 50% but the charge rate has dropped right off.
I don't know if this is a battery maintenance strategy - fast initial
charge then slow charge once past 50% - or something else.

Now charging at 260 mA and peak (flat battery) was 3553 mA.
The diagnostic screen from F5 is being very helpful at the moment.

Still showing the white power light.

Back when the problem started it would run off battery but would not run
off the power supply and the battery kept on discharging.

If it manages to keep charging then replacement battery will be ordered.

I just need to make sure that basic functionality is working again before
spending money on new stuff which is specific to this laptop.

Cheers

Dave R

--
AMD FX-6300 in GA-990X-Gaming SLI-CF running Windows 10 x64

David <wibble@btinternet.com> wrote:
> A year or more ago I was trying to diagnose problems with a Dell XPS 13
> 1943.
> As far as I can recall it wasn't charging the battery and the light on the
> front was blinking between white and orange to indicate that it didn't
> have enough power to charge the battery/run.
>
> I finally got round to looking at it again and I first checked the eternal
> power supply with a multi-meter and saw that it was working and outputting
> somewhere over 19V.
>
> I then plugged it in, powered up, and pressed F5 to run diagnostics.
>
> This said that the battery was on its last legs, but showed the 45W PSU
> was working, and at the moment the battery seems to be charging.
>
> At the moment the battery is up to 20% and still charging.
>
> I am therefore somewhat bemused (as usual).

I had the non-charging problem (XPS 15 9560) - laptop was completely dead,
wouldn't charge, nada. I took it apart and poked it with a multimeter, it
suggested power wasn't getting very far in, supposedly the main MOSFETs were
turned off by the power management chip.

After some Googling around I found a tip to replace the CMOS battery, and
that brought it back to life. It started charging and working just like
normal.

If yours is back, you might check the CMOS battery in case it's low.
Sometimes it's a rechargeable, sometimes it's a coin cell. Would be worth
replacing if the latter. If rechargeable, removing and trickle charging it
for a while to bring it back from dead flat might help.

> I assume that it should boot off an external drive, at a minimum a Linux
> distribution on a memory stick.
> I have a W10 install USB memory stick so probably I could install from
> that onto another external USB memory stick?
> Or would that be a step too far?

Don't see why you couldn't do that.

Theo

David <wibble@btinternet.com> wrote:
> Battery is now up to 50% but the charge rate has dropped right off.
> I don't know if this is a battery maintenance strategy - fast initial
> charge then slow charge once past 50% - or something else.
>
> Now charging at 260 mA and peak (flat battery) was 3553 mA.
> The diagnostic screen from F5 is being very helpful at the moment.
>
> Still showing the white power light.
>
> Back when the problem started it would run off battery but would not run
> off the power supply and the battery kept on discharging.
>
> If it manages to keep charging then replacement battery will be ordered.
>
> I just need to make sure that basic functionality is working again before
> spending money on new stuff which is specific to this laptop.

I would give it a few full-to-empty cycles, as it may be everything was so
flat it's forgotten the characteristics of the battery. You may have to
cycle it a few times so it relearns them.

Theo

On Fri, 04 Aug 2023 22:32:36 +0100, Theo wrote:

> David <wibble@btinternet.com> wrote:
>> A year or more ago I was trying to diagnose problems with a Dell XPS 13
>> 1943.
>> As far as I can recall it wasn't charging the battery and the light on
>> the front was blinking between white and orange to indicate that it
>> didn't have enough power to charge the battery/run.
>>
>> I finally got round to looking at it again and I first checked the
>> eternal power supply with a multi-meter and saw that it was working and
>> outputting somewhere over 19V.
>>
>> I then plugged it in, powered up, and pressed F5 to run diagnostics.
>>
>> This said that the battery was on its last legs, but showed the 45W PSU
>> was working, and at the moment the battery seems to be charging.
>>
>> At the moment the battery is up to 20% and still charging.
>>
>> I am therefore somewhat bemused (as usual).
>
> I had the non-charging problem (XPS 15 9560) - laptop was completely
> dead, wouldn't charge, nada. I took it apart and poked it with a
> multimeter, it suggested power wasn't getting very far in, supposedly
> the main MOSFETs were turned off by the power management chip.
>
> After some Googling around I found a tip to replace the CMOS battery,
> and that brought it back to life. It started charging and working just
> like normal.
>
> If yours is back, you might check the CMOS battery in case it's low.
> Sometimes it's a rechargeable, sometimes it's a coin cell. Would be
> worth replacing if the latter. If rechargeable, removing and trickle
> charging it for a while to bring it back from dead flat might help.
>
>> I assume that it should boot off an external drive, at a minimum a
>> Linux distribution on a memory stick.
>> I have a W10 install USB memory stick so probably I could install from
>> that onto another external USB memory stick?
>> Or would that be a step too far?
>
> Don't see why you couldn't do that.
>
> Theo

More memories coming back to me.
IIRC the laptop wasn't recognising the charger so wouldn't fire up because
it wasn't confident there was enough power to run it.

All I did different this time was to check the output of the charger using
a multi-meter by poking a probe up the inside of the connector and
touching the other probe to the outside.
Which showed that it was working.

I am now wondering if there is a Dell pin inside the power supply
connector which is used to identify the power supply, and I moved that
slightly which in turn made contact inside the PC power connector.

Whatever, it is now correctly reporting a 45W PSU.

Life is full of puzzles.

Anyway, it booted into Mint Cinnamon which then reminded me that Broadcom
WiFi chips are a problem under Linux, especially if you don't have an
Ethernet port.

M.2 SSD has arrived so I will try a W10 install today.

Cheers

Dave R

--
AMD FX-6300 in GA-990X-Gaming SLI-CF running Windows 10 x64

David wrote:

> IIRC the laptop wasn't recognising the charger so wouldn't fire up
> because it wasn't confident there was enough power to run it. All I did
> different this time was to check the output of the charger using a
> multi-meter by poking a probe up the inside of the connector and
> touching the other probe to the outside. Which showed that it was
> working. I am now wondering if there is a Dell pin inside the power
> supply connector which is used to identify the power supply, and I moved
> that slightly which in turn made contact inside the PC power connector.

Dell laptop power bricks for many years have had a 3rd "communication"
pin inside the barrel plug, this does indeed let the laptop know the
available power rating; without this the laptop assumes the worst and
will probably run the CPU at minimum speed and refuse to charge at the
same time it is powered on ...

On 05/08/2023 13:35, Andy Burns wrote:
> David wrote:
>
>> IIRC the laptop wasn't recognising the charger so wouldn't fire up
>> because it wasn't confident there was enough power to run it. All I
>> did different this time was to check the output of the charger using a
>> multi-meter by poking a probe up the inside of the connector and
>> touching the other probe to the outside. Which showed that it was
>> working. I am now wondering if there is a Dell pin inside the power
>> supply connector which is used to identify the power supply, and I
>> moved that slightly which in turn made contact inside the PC power
>> connector.
>
> Dell laptop power bricks for many years have had a 3rd "communication"
> pin inside the barrel plug, this does indeed let the laptop know the
> available power rating;  without this the laptop assumes the worst and
> will probably run the CPU at minimum speed and refuse to charge at the
> same time it is powered on ...
>

This is also often a case of intentional design so that if you buy a
non-dell charger, that will not work even if you have matched the
voltage, plug type, PSU wattage etc....

that extra "comms" pin ties you to using Dell only parts.....

On Sat, 05 Aug 2023 14:32:55 +0100, SH wrote:

> On 05/08/2023 13:35, Andy Burns wrote:
>> David wrote:
>>
>>> IIRC the laptop wasn't recognising the charger so wouldn't fire up
>>> because it wasn't confident there was enough power to run it. All I
>>> did different this time was to check the output of the charger using a
>>> multi-meter by poking a probe up the inside of the connector and
>>> touching the other probe to the outside. Which showed that it was
>>> working. I am now wondering if there is a Dell pin inside the power
>>> supply connector which is used to identify the power supply, and I
>>> moved that slightly which in turn made contact inside the PC power
>>> connector.
>>
>> Dell laptop power bricks for many years have had a 3rd "communication"
>> pin inside the barrel plug, this does indeed let the laptop know the
>> available power rating;  without this the laptop assumes the worst and
>> will probably run the CPU at minimum speed and refuse to charge at the
>> same time it is powered on ...
>>
>>
>
> This is also often a case of intentional design so that if you buy a
> non-dell charger, that will not work even if you have matched the
> voltage, plug type, PSU wattage etc....
>
> that extra "comms" pin ties you to using Dell only parts.....

Yes.
The unexplained bit is why the laptop is now recognising the Dell branded
power supply when it wasn't previously!

Cheers

Dave R

--
AMD FX-6300 in GA-990X-Gaming SLI-CF running Windows 10 x64

SH wrote:

> This is also often a case of intentional design so that if you buy a
> non-dell charger, that will not work even if you have matched the
> voltage, plug type, PSU wattage etc....
>
> that extra "comms" pin ties you to using Dell only parts.....

Some HPs have the same extra pin, and they work with Dells.

On Sat, 05 Aug 2023 13:39:34 +0000, David wrote:

> On Sat, 05 Aug 2023 14:32:55 +0100, SH wrote:
>
>> On 05/08/2023 13:35, Andy Burns wrote:
>>> David wrote:
>>>
>>>> IIRC the laptop wasn't recognising the charger so wouldn't fire up
>>>> because it wasn't confident there was enough power to run it. All I
>>>> did different this time was to check the output of the charger using
>>>> a multi-meter by poking a probe up the inside of the connector and
>>>> touching the other probe to the outside. Which showed that it was
>>>> working. I am now wondering if there is a Dell pin inside the power
>>>> supply connector which is used to identify the power supply, and I
>>>> moved that slightly which in turn made contact inside the PC power
>>>> connector.
>>>
>>> Dell laptop power bricks for many years have had a 3rd "communication"
>>> pin inside the barrel plug, this does indeed let the laptop know the
>>> available power rating;  without this the laptop assumes the worst and
>>> will probably run the CPU at minimum speed and refuse to charge at the
>>> same time it is powered on ...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> This is also often a case of intentional design so that if you buy a
>> non-dell charger, that will not work even if you have matched the
>> voltage, plug type, PSU wattage etc....
>>
>> that extra "comms" pin ties you to using Dell only parts.....
>
>
> Yes.
> The unexplained bit is why the laptop is now recognising the Dell
> branded power supply when it wasn't previously!

More interesting (but not in a good way) I've just installed the Dell
Support Assistant and downloaded and installed a load of driver updates
and the laptop is now refusing to recognise the power supply.

Correlation/causation but it seemed happy with a generic W10 install.

I may be back to looking at replacing the connector in the laptop in case
that is the problem.

Also, it is raining.

Gah!

Dave R

--
AMD FX-6300 in GA-990X-Gaming SLI-CF running Windows 10 x64

David wrote:

> I've just installed the Dell Support Assistant and downloaded and
> installed a load of driver updates and the laptop is now refusing to
> recognise the power supply.

I don't have Dells at the moment, but always used to wipe them and
reinstall drivers direct from the hardware manufacturers ...