How to lessen performance impact on Dell laptop with defective power system?

Question

A few months ago, I replaced a broken cord for my Dell Inpsiron 15 laptop. The replacement cord (a slightly different model from the factory cord) worked perfectly until a week ago, when I started experiencing problems. My battery refused to charge and I saw errors like these, indicating that either my new charger is broken or my laptop isn't detecting it properly.

As long as I stayed plugged in, my battery percentage would stay constant. On a few separate occasions the problem would temporarily disappear and my battery would charge for a few hours, although it has since dropped to 0% and hasn't gone back up. My charger is not overheating; if anything it feels cooler than it did before this problem appeared.

I can use my laptop fine as long as it stays plugged in, but my performance has been greatly impacted. Notably, my laptop runs just as fast regardless of what power plan I access. Right now, despite being on "high performance" mode, even such basic tasks as resizing my browser window and opening new tabs take several seconds and look quite jumpy.

So now, my question: given the situation I've described, is it possible or advisable to somehow lessen the negative impact on my computer's performance? It's greatly impeding the efficiency with which I do... well, everything on my computer, and has made it absolutely impossible to play video games (I got 5 frames per second when I tried).

Also, is there any way to tell whether it's the charger or the laptop that's causing the problem? I'm inclined to think it's the laptop since it's about two years old, nothing's broken on it yet, and power systems are almost always the first things to go. The timing with purchasing the new is a little suspect though.

I'm dual booting Windows 8.1 and Ubuntu. Performance impacts only visible on windows but battery not charging for either OS. Windows has been laggier than Ubuntu for basic desktop operations for a while now, although switching to high performance mode normally fixed this.

Answer 1

I don't think the problem because of cord, it could be a power supply itself. Try to get any new one on ebay (It less than $10) The most common problem on laptop - it is dusted cooling system. Blow with air compressor (no more than 60Psi pressure) the radiator holes. If CPU/GPU got hot and there not enough cooling, computer will automatically slow down performance. If performance is bad on Windows, then it probably an antiviruse(s). Remove all of them and keep only official Microsoft security essential. Turn off "Windows search" and "Superfetch" services. If it is retail computer there should be a bunch of pre-installed bloatware, remove all of them if you don't use it.

Download hwinfo and check S.M.A.R.T status of HDD. Pay attention on parameters 5,196,197, if there is values bigger than 0 then performance would be effected and you need to replace HDD ASAP.

Two years old computer is practically a new one, since progress is kinda slow downed.

Answer 2

If you're getting the BIOS messages in the link you posted, then it's almost definitely your charger. I've never heard of or noticed a bad power cable impact performance, though I don't let my laptop get to 0% very often either. (I've heard of gaming laptops that can't reach full speed unless they're plugged in and the battery is at 100%, but I don't know if that concept applies here or not.)

If you want, you can try fiddling with the cable some to see if you can get it to completely "recognize" the charger. I have a similar laptop (Inspiron 15R) with a charger with a bad cable, and to get it to charge the laptop, I connect the charger, and push the wire toward the laptop. (I grasp the charger cable itself an inch or two down the wire from the plug, and apply pressure toward the laptop, like I'm trying to push it harder into the laptop.) This seems to cause things to connect, and my laptop recognizes the charger and can charge. (You may also want to fiddle with the other end of the cable where it goes in to the power brick.)

One useful tip I've noticed is to pay close attention to the charging light. On my laptop, when I connect my faulty charger, the battery LED lights up for a few seconds then goes dark. When I use the pressure trick above, I know I've made it work when the LED stays on for ~15 seconds. At that point I can let go of the cable and it will continue to charge until I unplug it. (If the LED goes dark during that period, I unplug it and try again.) It seems to use a one-time authentication system, where the laptop identifies the charger when you connect it, but once it's satisfied that it's got a good charger, it doesn't check it again.

I do agree that only a few months seems a bit quick for a power supply to go out, though if you bend and stress the cable over and over again, it's going to give out sooner or later. Dell seems to be fairly standard with their chargers; if you have a friend with a Dell laptop, try asking them to borrow their charger and see if it works for you.

If you can "trick" your laptop into charging using that method, or if your friend's charger works, then your power issue is definitely a bad power cable, and replacing it should fix it. I would imagine that if the laptop believed that it had a limited current supply (say, from a charger that's not rated high enough for the laptop), then it would cut its performance in order to stay below a certain power threshold, and fixing the power issue will fix the performance issue, though that's just a guess on my part.