All my Dell power adapters are dying! I have 3 and none work now. The first one started saying it was not compatible, then the next one worked for a short period then the green light went out. I put one in that has hardly been used and it did the same thing. They start making a high pitched noise and won't charge the battery. It's not my wall plug, they work fine with other things. Every one I put in suffers the same fate, new or old. Is it my computer?

I had a similar problem with Dell power adapters. We just called Dell and they were able to replace it for us. I would say just call in and ask these questions to one of their technicians, and just keep getting dell to replace your power adapters if you cant find any other solution. If that is just too annoying, I would just pick up a new laptop...

It seems that there is a short-circuit that is demanding a lot of current from your power adapter, making it over-stress and fail after a while.

You could try the following:

First of all, check in your user's manual if there is any restriction in using the laptop connected to the power adapter without the battery plugged in. If there is none, proceed with the instructions below.

With your laptop off, remove its battery and plug in the power adapter. Turn the laptop on and check the adapter. If it presents the high pitched noise you mentioned, the short circuit is inside your equipment and you will need to send it to be repaired.

But if it operates normally only with the adapter, there must be a short-circuit inside your battery. Switch the laptop off, insert the battery and switch it on again. If the high pitched noise appears, you can be sure it is your battery that needs to be replaced.

Hope this info may help you!

Yes! unfortunately it is, the reason why the power adapter has the high pitch noise is because the power supply is being loaded down by the motherboard, it may be due to the DC jack in the laptop or the charging circuits on the motherboard causing the problem. However there is one way to find out, remove the main battery to see if the high pitch noise goes away, if it does! it will prove where the problem is. It is also very possible that the battery is loading the whole circuitry, because it may have a high resistance short, enough to cook the power supply, I have seen this in very rare cases and is one for the books.