I am wondering if anybody would let me use their Dell Laptop Power Supply for a few minutes. I need to find out if my Power Supply is faulty or not.

Dell power supplies (and compatibles) have a bit of circuitry in them that talks to the laptop, while to power the laptop you don't need this circuit to work but to charge the battery you do.

My power supply is powering the laptop ok but will not charge the battery. I need to find out if it is the power supply that is not talking to the laptop, or if its the laptop not talking to the power supply.

The easiest way to do this is to use a known good power supply and see if this will permit the laptop to charge its battery.

If you are willing, will you tell me the model number of the power supply so I can check it is compatible with my laptop.

ta

I have a toshiba P300 if that works?

DD, Got this PC line 90w universal laptop power adapter, Compatible with dell,
AC input.100-240v 50/60Hz
Dc output 15/16/18/19/20/22v (4.0A) 24V (3.75A) (MAX 90W))

If you want to try it you know were i live.

Thanks Kimpri but I don't think a universal power supply will charge the battery as it won't have the required active data line that is required.

Thanks to Wheels as well, but the same goes.

It needs to be either a Dell power supply, or a compatible that is known to charge Dell laptop batteries.

Are you having problems again, just bring it into the shop and if we have one that fits can try it out for you.

The charging circuit does have an on-board fuse, and the battery has its own internal one as well, so we'll see if we have an old battery if you're getting power out of the charger in case that has gone.

If the laptop itself is showing a charging light that means that you are getting something out of the charger, just depends what.

Cheers Dr, brand new Battery and no charging light on the lap-top, though it does flash with an old duff battery present (whose internal fuse has probably gone).

Its just a matter of knowing which part has gone, there were some other issues with the power supply which I have sorted, but don't have any easy reliable way of testing the charger/laptop data link, the laptop's bios isn't acknowledging the data link, but it still could be either end at fault.

Don't know why Dell included the expense of the data link - they aren't renowned for putting i n surplus hardware.

I don't know if this bit of info is of any use, but the last Dell laptop i had would run without having the battery installed, just with in charger plugged in

OK, many thanks again to TheDr who has helped me out yet again.