I've got a Dell Studio 1555, about 7 years old. In short, when I plug in the AC power, the charging light comes on white for 1-3 seconds and then goes off. The the computer can run on battery power, but that's run out, and it won't run on AC power.
The longer story is that I stopped using the computer about a year ago, and it sat in storage. Recently I gave it to my brother and it worked just fine for about a day, running games and programs. The battery had died in storage, but it charged to 100% just fine. Then the next day, while on, asleep, and plugged in, the problem must have started and the laptop stopped drawing AC power. We didn't notice and started a game of Civ 5. In retrospect, the computer was obviously running on battery, since the game was running so slow. Within an hour, the computer ran out of battery and shut itself down. We fiddled with the adapter and could only get the charging light to come on for a few seconds at a time when plugging it in. We've tried another adapter with the same results. The original adapter that was being used when it stopped working is quite old and a bit frayed.
I'm reasonably comfortable taking the thing apart, but it's not worth spending much money to fix it, given the age of the laptop.
So, I'd love to know what's wrong and how difficult would it be to fix?
Thanks!
The longer story is that I stopped using the computer about a year ago, and it sat in storage. Recently I gave it to my brother and it worked just fine for about a day, running games and programs. The battery had died in storage, but it charged to 100% just fine. Then the next day, while on, asleep, and plugged in, the problem must have started and the laptop stopped drawing AC power. We didn't notice and started a game of Civ 5. In retrospect, the computer was obviously running on battery, since the game was running so slow. Within an hour, the computer ran out of battery and shut itself down. We fiddled with the adapter and could only get the charging light to come on for a few seconds at a time when plugging it in. We've tried another adapter with the same results. The original adapter that was being used when it stopped working is quite old and a bit frayed.
I'm reasonably comfortable taking the thing apart, but it's not worth spending much money to fix it, given the age of the laptop.
So, I'd love to know what's wrong and how difficult would it be to fix?
Thanks!