AC Power Adapter type cannot be determined?

Question

Deal All,

I have a Dell Inspiron 600m notebook bought in 2004 which has BOIS
version A14.

When I was working, my daughter ran through the AC adapter cable,
apparently DC power jack was broken and all the pins are dis aligned.

If I connect the AC power adapter to notebook dc jack, it was saying
the invalid adapter and will run on battery only.

So I bought a new Docking Station from ebay (DELL D/Port Advanced Port
Replicator PR01X) with 90Watt PA10 adapter (which is correct one,
DELL suggests on their website),


But unfortunately when I connect this to notebook, after initial boot
screen and immediately after showing the windows splash screen I get
the below error message

"Your system is docked but the AC Power Adapter type cannot be
determined.
Either undock or insert an appropriate adapter.
Strike the F1 key to shutdown"

I have done following things:

1) I have upgraded the BIOS from A14 to A17 which is downloaded from
DELL site

Same error

Answer 1

The docking station works but u see the problem is the AC adaptor that comes with it is not for your notebook. Actually why go through all these trouble, just buy it from Dell on the net the right adaptor and then auction off your docking system to save some cash.

Besides have u had a look at the notebook AC port, it might be damaged by the accident. I don't know whether meantime u can charge ur notebook through connection of USB cable to a desktop computer, maybe u can try that.

Answer 2

It might be that the adapter is 65 watt and the charger needs 65 watt, but the adapter is running a bit on the low side, so it will not supply the wattage needed. You might try an adapter with a bit more watts. Maybe the battery just has too much resistance for a weak 65 watt charger. I saw on line a minute ago, when searching, that one person used a 150 watt charger and it seemed to work okay. But make sure the cord plug is the same. Some have positive and negative switched. The inner part of the plugin is usually Positive, but I have seen some adapters with negative inside. Also, make sure that the OUtput Voltage is the same. 6 volt, 12 volt, 15 volt, whatever. The adapter will have the voltage written on it. (120 volt in, 12 volt out, example) Using one with a higher voltage will burn up your battery or some other damage. so if you buy a more powerful charger, just make sure it has the same output, voltage. Amps x volts = watts. A 10 amp 12 volt adapter will put out 120 watts. A 20 amp 6 volt adapter also puts out 120 watts. Watts are the same, but you can't use a 12 volt on a 6 volt, so it would burn up. so just be careful. Get the volt right, the positive/negative polarity right, and the watts can be higher, no matter to much. You can use a 150 watt charger on a 65 watt, it will only use 65 watts.

Answer 3

Have you attempted to attach the power supply directly to the laptop, without the dock to see if it will use it? It is possible that the accident that damaged the original supply may also have damaged the laptop connector if the supply was attached. That may be preventing the laptop from properly docking and those correctly identifying the power supply.

Very common problem.

Answer 4

You have the wrong adapter, you need to return it to Dell and get the correct one for the port replicator