If you own a Dell laptop at some point in its life time you are almost certainly going to fine across charging issues. I say Dell because this is from personal experience only but I do have friends with other brands that have similar or more or less identical power issues after 2 or 3 years.
My Dell XPS 12 hybrid is a great laptop and I’ve loved it since the day I unboxed it, I prepared myself however for the inevitable death of the charger by purchasing a 2nd one at the same time. This precautionary measure may have been a little premature as it has taken a full 1 year and 8 months to finally die.
To be honest, the point for this post wasn’t to once again prove that laptop manufacturers seem to force you into buying more batteries or chargers, the point was that some force you into buying THEIR brand of batteries or chargers. Dell is one of those manufacturers that practice this dirty profit minded scheme, worse thing is the power port on any laptop EXCEPT the MacBook Pro range is such a clear design flaw it’s obvious that it’s made to not last long enough past your warranty period.
My 18 month old XPS’ power port stopped detecting that my legitimate Dell charger was no longer legitimate, my first thought was the charger has gone fubar, so as you do I tried my second one, no dice. Sad part is they let the charger power up the laptop but not charge it, how nice of you kind sir.
Looking at the power port it was clear something was up so I ordered the part of eBay for £11.49
I went ahead opened my laptop and replaced the old knackered one myself and it was good to go.
The power port on the left is missing its internal housing, I’m guessing that this holds a chip that detects whether the charger being used is an actual legit Dell charger
Just so you know Dell quoted me just under £300 to send an engineer to my location and repair it. Makes you wonder how lucrative the out of warranty business is, feeding of the fact the average Joe has too much fear in opening his own equipment and repairing it.