I have a Dell XPS 15 and gotten an alert before starting the laptop that reads "Alert! The AC power adapter wattage and type cannot be determined. The battery may not be charge. The system will adjust the performance to match the power available. Note: This warning can be disabled in BIOS setup."
Hey guys I just got my Dell Laptop less than 30 days again I was having the same Alert message about Power dapter and Apparently I was not pushing the plug all the way in to the laptop connection. I was only pushing it in half way thru. Just realized that and pushed it in all the way and now im charging back up to normal. So just FYI, make sure your plugging it all the way you just never know that could be the problem. Hope this helps, thanks!
""Alert! The AC power adapter wattage and type cannot be determined. "" really does mean something is not right.
If you tried 2 separate genuine dell chargers, and both give you this error, then there maybe something else wrong. Enter the BIOS, and look at the battery/power section to see if tells you more. I have seen the power jack itself get messed up, and that may be the cause. Plugging in a 90W will charge slowly, but will not give a cannot determine message."
"I am having the same problem, actually now for like fifth time already. I own my xps 9560, i7 for like 2-3 years. Dell is absolutely silent about this, so your only chance are forums like this (or Pro-Support, see below). I checked a lot of times and I am 100% sure it was never caused by wrong adapter, bent pin, worn jack, loose socket, bad battery or some software nor bios issue etc. People that are giving advice to check these things must be assuming you are a complete retard or maybe they fixed few computers like this and then they think they know everything. Let me tell you that about this particular issue, they know nothing. Nobody has so far solved this one and it is a very frustrating one. It seems to be not so rare either.
First time I let the Dell service solve it (pro support). After some initial remote troubleshooting to exclude the case you are an idiot who cannot use google, a technician came with a motherboard and replaced it. It worked for half a day until it happened again. Strangely enough, when I was messing with the computer myself (like unplugging/plugging battery at random times), I (very rarely) managed to charge it to full. However, it never stayed for long. So they took it, send it somewhere (Poland?), where another technician exchanged the power socket with AC cable + motherboard. Since then, it worked fine for a long time, although very occasionally, the battery stopped to charge, but only temporarily. What I observed is that the issue is much more likely to trigger when you don’t plug the adapter into the wall socket directly, but use whatever kind of an extension cord or fork. So it is likely to be caused by some fluctuations in the input power. Although one would think that the adapter takes care of that, it seems it doesn’t. To support this, I also observed there is relatively high probability of the issue to trigger when you plug the computer into a socket on a train and then they switch the power off and on again (at stations etc.). So it seems something gets (progressively?) damaged inside computer, but it is unclear what. Sometimes I managed to resolve the issue by disconnecting the adapter in the middle, reconnecting the wire to the computer’s socket and connecting the middle again (or some permutations of that). This time however, it does not work anymore and I am now running the machine without battery (it won’t start with depleted battery, but starts without it - makes sense). I already tried to replace the socket and AC cable myself, but it did not help.
In conclusion, it seems that the only reliable fix is to replace the AC cable + motherboard at the same time (and then stay away from extension cords and train sockets), but since I tried this solution only once, I can’t even guarantee that. The motherboard is not a cheap part and obviously lot of screwing to change, so you will probably be better with extending your warranty and letting them repair it."
"The problem may be that the motherboard power section is not recognizing either power adapter correctly. You can check the BIOS settings, if there is a problem on the motherboard the power adapter will show up as 1 watt instead of 60 or 90 watt. The built in diagnostics might give you more information. You should also check the power connector, it should not move; if it does it could be loose enough that the contacts don't match up.
The laptop generally needs 60 watts of power to run all the installed devices. If you have a dock, it requires an additional 20 -30 watts to run the devices in the dock. Plugging a 90 watt power adapter into the dock will result in one or more devices connected through the dock to not work, most cases it is the external video that does not work. Plugging a 130 watt power adapter to the laptop will not hurt the laptop as the laptop will only draw the power it needs to operate."
"My XPS 9560 stopped recognizing the power adapter. I tried changing the DC jack (twice), flashing the BIOS, removing battery from the system (so Windows would reinstall). Nothing worked. My battery got to 0 % and when I removed the battery, it would boot and run fine, but having no battery is frustrating. Finally, I saw a thread where someone said you could charge the laptop through the USB C port (but slow, since power is low). I saw a 90 W USB-C on Amazon and got it. It charged the battery in a couple hours while the computer was running. It may not be the full 130 W, but it’s very usable and charges fast enough. Here’s the Amazon link if you want to check into it:
