battery problem? motherboard?

[clulu]

hello,
 
ill try to make this short. im only able to fully charge my laptop when its off. it does charge when im using it but it takes hours and hours and so far i havent been able to fully charge it when on; even when im using it for like 7 hours.....this all started when i unfortunately downloaded a program called "driver easy" thinking that updating all my drivers was necessary and would make it faster. i feel like it ruined my laptop, after i installed like 30 drivers in one day. so i wasnt able to figure out which drivers to delete, i mean its a very delicate situation, so i was advised to just install windows 10, since i had windows 7 and maybe the problem would be solved.
 
 so i clean installed windows 10....same problem. and when i plug the laptop in it starts acting funny, veeery slow and just lagging in everything, and keeping it plugged in is already eating up my battery cuz it wont charge 100% anymore...so if its not the drivers, is it the motherboard? i googled some things and im thinking maybe this is the issue. idk. is it because my laptop has always overheated since the beginning and finally it has permanently damaged it? why does it only charge fully when off? are the drivers interfering w/ charging when on? whats going on and how can i fix it? do i have to replace the motherboard?
 
i have a dell laptop, E6400, now has 64 bit

[DaveLembke]

Checking on additional info with this one...

So laptop states its not charging when its running and will run with no other problems off of its wall adapter power supply, but battery wont charge when its in operation, battery only charges when its off?

When off and charged to 100%, with running off the battery alone its able to power this laptop for at least an hour without the battery going dead on you after a full charge from power off charging?

If the battery once fully charged from being powered off and charged is able to hold the laptop live for at least an hour on its own without diving/draining fast, then I'd think that the power supply for the laptop might need to be replaced. However if the laptop running on battery when fully charged runs out of juice faster than when it was new, then I'd suggest a new battery. Its more probable for the battery itself to be pulling heavier with a weak cell. If this is the case then you might feel warmth from the battery when its being charged as the battery is fighting the taking of a charge. Some laptops have the ability to sense current input and if the external power supply isnt able to charge the battery + run the laptop, it will switch over to not charging the battery and as a last resort of staying alive it will run off of direct power from the power supply adapter which is the power supply that goes between outlet and the cord to the laptop. Interestingly on Lenovo Laptops they will even report that the power supply isnt the proper wattage for the laptop and act like yours plus the Core i5 2.4Ghz CPU will run in a non-turbo green power state affecting performance until a suitable heavier wattage power adapter/supply is used. Your is a Dell and not sure if Dell has such a current sensor to underclock a laptop and report wrong rated power supply.

By the way, is this power supply the one that came with laptop or a replacement that your using? If its a replacement then it might be the correct voltage but not able to carry the current demands of charging a battery + operation at the same time.

If this battery has never been replaced, it is probably a good idea to replace that first. Just saw that this is about a 10 year old laptop. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Dell-Latitude-E6400-Notebook.12875.0.html  This link has all sorts of useful info on your laptop including battery life before drained figures of a healthy battery.

[patio]

If you didn't install the proper Dell Win 10 drivers it'll exhibit this issue...

[DaveLembke]

Yeah I checked there too Patio    before posting what I posted earlier and their driver support ended with Windows 7 as seen here. Its a laptop that is around 10 years old. Here is the supported OS listing for drivers: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/19/drivers/supportedos/latitude-e6400

Dell did however state this:

Note regarding operating systems not listed above:
Dell may not support an operating system for various reasons, including discontinued support from the software vendor or lack of availability with certain products.
For more information about an unsupported platform or operating system, please contact the software vendor.

[patio]

Then it's likely the battery...or charger...or both given the age...