Dell Inspiron 15 5000 - Model 5559

This is a spare 15 month old lappy in my office... At BIOS bootup I am greeted with:

Error message - "The AC adapter type cannot be determined. This will prevent optimal system performance." Going into the BIOS also shows that the power supply is unknown... The power brick is the DELL 45w that came with the machine.

I'm 90% certain the DC jack on the lappy is broken... The good news I think is that the DC jack is a separate card and can be replace without a new mobo.

The battery also isn't charging.

QUESTION: From what I've been reading, I believe the This will prevent optimal system performance part means that the CPU will not run at full capacity.

We could live without being able to charge the battery, but if we're not getting the full i5 2.3GHz, then that's another story.

Any thoughts on the CPU performance?

You may be seeing limited CPU/memory speeds. You could try something like CPU-Z to check on that.

Check out the links below for other possible fix ideas:

http://www.tomsguide.com/forum/78657...dapter-problem

http://www.askvg.com/fix-the-ac-powe...up-in-laptops/

Ya, that sounds like the CPU is going into low power mode to conserve battery. I'd try another AC adapter if you have one.

This lappy is the third out of four that we have. (exact match) I was able to borrow a battery and AC adaptor from another machine.. No difference. The good news is that the battery will charge and stay charged... it just won't recharge on the bad machine.

The EX employee purchased an aftermarket adaptor which probably wasn't an exact match and broke the internal jack. Guess we're lucky it runs at all.

I'll pop into Micro Center and get a quote on fixing it.

I had an older Dell inspiron 15R that had similar issues where the AC adapter that came with the laptop was not recognized.

There was a problem with the adapter and possibly the power jack. There's a small ring that goes on the tip of the portion of the adapter that gets plugged into the machine; somewhere along the way, this ring went missing. I can still power the laptop with this adapter, but it's not recognized by the system. There was also one instance when I was connecting the adapter where it produced a nice blue spark and a small puff of smoke ... but, after waiting while, the adapter powered the machine normally, albeit with the "AC adapter not recognized" message.

I've since replaced both the adapter (with the ring intact) and also a new power jack within the laptop, and it works like new.

-PeterMac