[Nevereli13]

OK so I have a 3 year old Dell latitude d530 running windows xp pro, and recently my ac adapter seemed to die. It seemed to work when i would wiggle the plug around, but then it stopped charging completely. So I figured I would buy a new charger since the old one wouldn't even light up anymore, and for a while everything worked fine. Then the same problem starts up again! ac adapter is still on, led light is still activated, but the laptop screen darkens and says I am now running on battery power. My battery itself seems to be ok as it still holds a charge for well over 4 hours, but I'm really just not sure whats wrong here. The laptop itself works just fine, no errors, not even the 'unknown adapter, use a dell adapter' error message. I was thinking maybe my ac jack was loose? Any help would be very useful to me.

TIA

[TheShooter93]

I'm slightly confused as to what the issue is if the charger works fine, and the laptop can hold the charge for at least 4 hours. Please be a bit specific and I can help you out.

[FSXIV]

Ok, I see that this can be a common issue, but not an easy solution. Most likely, there is a black box on the charger cord. This is called a transformer/rectifier. It converts 110VAC into [Correct me if wrong] 12VDC. It all depends on if you use a surge protector, because that may be the problem. If you do not, when a large appliance that draws a lot of current (Amps), a spike is formed. These electrical disturbances are very destructive to all electronic devices, especially recifiers. I'm not to worried about the trandformer, those are pretty tough machines. (Yes, a transformer is a machine, the most efficient machine man has created with a rating of 99.999+ efficiency) Rectifiers convert the current from AC>DC and consist of many diodes (Diodes only let current flow in one direction) to do this. If those diodes short out, current will no longer flow to the computer. Maybe for a second or two while the transformer is discharging, but that would be it. And i may make sense, 3 years would seem like a long enough time, if you did not use a surge protector. Hope this helps!!