Dell Studio 1749 :: Stop Charging - Laptop Won't Power Up With Battery Removed

Last Friday i received my new Studio 1749 with i3. As told by the documentation I put in the battery, put the power cable in the ac-adapter, pluged the AC-cable into the laptop and then pluged the ac-adapter into the wall outlet. I booted the laptop and once I was on the windows desktop had a look at the battery symbol. It showed that the laptop was connected to external power and that the battery was being charged.

I wen't away from the laptop to let it charge the battery for 12 hours as told by the documentation. After two hours i came back to have a look at the laptop and it was off. Curious I turned it on again. After booting up it showed the battery at 60% and the laptop running from battery. Yet the ac-adapter was connected to the laptop. I hadn't changed anything. I pluged the adapter cable in and out, but it wouldn't recognize that the was external power available. Turning the laptop off an on again didn't work either.

Now I feared for the battery. My guess is that at one point it started to run on battery power even though it was not charged for 12 hours. Then when the battery was depleted the laptop shut down. This might have permanently damaged the battery!

I guess as soon as the laptop was off the ac-adapter charged the battery again, and when I came in it was just at 60%.

So I turned it off removed the ac-adapter, removed the battery, put the battery back into the laptop pluged the ac-adapter back in and booted up again. Now it showed it was running from external power again. All fine. It charged the battery as well. Actually it charged the battery up to 99% and then out of nowhere the battery symbol changed and it was running from battery AGAIN! Even though it was still connected to the ac-adapter. This happens all the time. It is reproducable.

So I thought something might be wrong with the ac-adapter.

I powered down the laptop and removed the battery. Now with only the ac-adapter connected ,I tried to start the laptop. The control lights above the keyboard came on for 2 or 3 seconds and then the laptop turned off again. Trying to hit the power button again after that didn't give another reaction.

Conclusion: The laptop won't run just on external power with no battery in the battery bay.

I put in the battery again. AC-adapter still connected. Hit power. Laptop starts to boot. Then while booting I removed the battery. Laptop keeps on booting - finishes booting - runs nice and well at full speed not missing the battery - FOREVER.

So it won't boot with the battery removed, but it will run without it flawlessly??? Strange isn't it?

Next test: I put in the battery again while the laptop is running from mains. And now it charges the battery again until the point... you already know... it "forgets" that it is connected to the ac-adapter and starts running on battery power. So now I boldly removed the battery while the laptop was running. After all it was still connected to mains/ac-power.