Help with my new laptop charger.

[Al Bumin]

I have a 2 year old Dell laptop. Three days ago my charger gave up on me. Went to staples and the salesman recommended "Targus" charger $89 friggin dollars . Plugged it in and get a warning from my computer saying it does nor recognize it and I should be installing a Dell charger. Well it does the job and gives me power but the icon in the bottom right hand side says 0 available, not charging.

I would be OK with that because the adapter is doing what I need which is to make my laptop work. But when I bring it home and turn it on I have to re-boot it again and the screen asks me, you want it on safe mode, regular etc. I just press enter and it works. Does anyone know how I can change it in my computer so this doesn't happen again?.

Thank you.

 

[Lorenzo]

Where is Oddball?.

 

[Al Bumin]

Right here!
Friggin' electrical equipment! Most likely the charger is not 100% compatible. The A/C adapters do send info to the devices for some sort of identification. I Googled the problem and it looks pretty common. I found some stuff on this forum, see if this sounds like your issue.



You can find A/C adapters more reasonable online and the ones I have looked at appear to be Dell equipment. Dell support can be helpful in determining if the only issue is with the A/C adapter.

I feel your pain Al, I have a Motorola cellphone that has a mini-USB (universal ya-right serial bus) power outlet. So I think great I can just plug in any mini-USB cord and charge the phone. Nope, has to be a Motorola cord 'cause data is passed to the phone to ID the charger! :grrrrrr:

Thanks Oddball. I will call Dell but looks like I just wasted $100 as cannot find the receipt.