I am currently living in Japan but using a Dell XPS 13 bought in the U.S but with a Swedish charger, I thus have to use a power converter in order to fit my charger into the Japanese plugs. In the beginning I had no problems with this at all, but then suddenly this message was displayed when I turned on the laptop(which got Ubuntu 16.04 installed):
I was not allowed to post images so I'll write down the text here instead: "Alert! The AC power adapter wattage and type cannot be determined. The battery may not charge. The system will adjust the performance to match the power available."
I can hit F1 and start the laptop anyway and it runs fine as long as the power plug is connected, but the battery won't charge at all. The strange thing is that this happened the first time a couple of weeks ago but then suddenly it disappeared for a while and the battery would charge just fine. Then it returned and now it's been like this for over a week. I haven't been able to find any information regarding this online and I have tried two different power converters with the same result.
Any ideas how this can be fixed?
The warning signal was from BIOS and had nothing to do with Ubuntu. Turns out there was something wrong with my charger making it unable to charge the battery. Replacing the charger with a new one fixed the problem and the battery now charges as it should.
Going back for some time the OEM 19.5 volt Dell chargers actually have 3 different "pins" even though it appears that there are only 2 connections. There is the outer shell connection, an inner shell connection, and a small pin in the center. The outer and inner shell connections are the power circuit. The small pin is a sense circuit.
When Dell reduced the size of the charger connector it made the sense circuit contacts even smaller and IMO less reliable. (Look at how much larger the older Dell plugs were.) I think the "power, no charge" problems are most often a result of the sense pin not conducting properly. The problem can be in the computer female or the charger male section. If you are lucky, it will be the charger male connector and not the computer side.
I had a similar problem with my Dell G5. Thanks to a weak plastic casing on the sides which chipped around the charger port, the charger was free to shift slightly in the port. This resulted in the center pin being bent out of place. I was able to bend the center pin back into place with a pair of tweezers. Once the pin was bent back, the battery started charging again.
I replaced the missing plastic with several layers of very carefully applied epoxy to prevent the charger from shifting in the port and bending the pin yet again. Between that mess and the thick layers of duct tape around the base of the male side that I applied immediately to avoid having to purchase a third replacement charger, it looks like a total hatchet job, but it works at least. Hopefully Dell will get their act together on their charger design soon.