Score:0

AC not detected — time running out

us flag

My Dell XPS 13, running Kubuntu, doesn’t detect the power supply anymore when plugged in (I’m using a USB-C charger, which lights up the same way it always does, so I believe the problem isn’t with the charger). Rebooting didn’t help.

I only noticed the problem when the battery was already down to 9%. Currently the laptop is turned off, and I don’t have a lot of time left to try different things. I’d therefore appreciate advice on which strategy has the best odds of being successful.

My second-last resort once the battery is totally drained would be ordering a new charger, ideally not for the USB-C port but the power jack. My last resort would be replacing the battery. Both are expensive and I’d like to avoid them if they’re unnecessary.

in flag
Silly question, but have you tried charging with different USB-C ports?
br flag
how many amps are your charger? charging a laptop via usb-c might simply not have the power for charging while it is running.turn your laptop off when you need to charge it.
us flag
It’s an older model with only one USB-C port.
cn flag
Ray
If your computer is off and you plugged it in but the battery isn't charging, then the problem is your battery. The operating system doesn't affect the charging of a laptop battery when it's off; having the computer off removes Kubuntu as a possible cause. It's also possible that the USB-C port isn't supplying enough current to charge?
us flag
In the past, the charger was powerful enough to charge while the laptop is running. What’s different now is also that the power manager doesn’t display the battery as charging anymore. So something must’ve changed.
us flag
@Ray, that’s a helpful diagnostic! I’ll wait a bit and see what happens
us flag
Update: The battery didn’t charge while the laptop was off. So it must be a hardware problem. I just ordered a charger.
cn flag
Ray
Good to hear you've solved your problem! Indeed, the software (whether it is Windows or Ubuntu) has all this helpful information about how much battery life there is, etc., but we often forget that the battery should charge as normal without the OS running. If it can't do that, then there is probably a hardware problem...
Thomas Murphy avatar
gq flag
I recently verified that a second-hand Dell laptop, which came with windows, could successfully charge the battery, but when I installed Kubuntu 20, it would say it was charging but it actually wasn't, so mine is certainly an OS issue, and yours may be too.
mangohost

Post an answer

Most people don’t grasp that asking a lot of questions unlocks learning and improves interpersonal bonding. In Alison’s studies, for example, though people could accurately recall how many questions had been asked in their conversations, they didn’t intuit the link between questions and liking. Across four studies, in which participants were engaged in conversations themselves or read transcripts of others’ conversations, people tended not to realize that question asking would influence—or had influenced—the level of amity between the conversationalists.