Dell battery problem

Steve_xx

Problem with my Dell Inspiron 1300 laptop battery. The laptop thinks that the battery is not present and indeed when I switch off the mains supply it immediatey goes off. Its about 2 years old and I was aware that the battery did't last as long as it used to. I don't often use it on battery power but wondered if anyone knows why it thinks that the battery isn't present?

I've tried removing and re-seating the battery pack, but the problem is still there.

1jim

do you mean the battery is dead?
I have the same laptop as you and my battery will not hold a charge (for any length of time) but the laptop still works fine when pluged in, but I havnt had any messages to say battery not present so might be a different problem??
Am now in the process of looking for a new laptop as dont really want to spend nearly a hundred quid on a new battery when around £300 will get me a new laptop

Steve_xx

The battery must be dead I guess. Though on the indicator it says "battery not present". I've removed it and put it backk in and I checked the contacts to ensure they are clean and all seems ok in that sense.

Some while back a Dell indicator used to pop up each time I booted up and it told me that the battery was probably past it best. I got fed up of that so I turned the message off. I have noted that it wont run for long on battery, and of course now it wont operate at all on battery power because the laptop believe it' not actually there.

inamabilis

There should be some little lights somewhere on the laptop (bottom left of the base from the looks of it) that show (amongst other things) if the battery is charging. Normally if the battery light comes on and is orange(?) then the battery is charging, if it is green then it is fully charged and if it flashes there is a problem. If the light does not come on at all then the battery is not inserted (according to the laptop hardware). This should be your first step in diagnosis.

Get back to us with what you find.

Conor_3

It's not that at all, inamabilis. Not many people are aware of this but Dells batteries contain a chip with a counter on. It counts the number of times the battery has been cycled and when it hits a preset limit (OTTOMH 300 rings a bell), it stops the battery from being charged anymore or being registered as present. It does this no matter what status the cells in the batteries are actually in.
Apparently it is done for "our benefit to ensure that there is consistency in the duration a laptop will operate from a full charge". It damned well isn't. It's done so that Dell can sell you new batteries to replace perfectly good ones. I will bet money on this being what has happened to yours, Steve.

My advice to you is to get onto Ebay or mdsbattery.co.uk and buy an aftermarket one. They don't have this rip-off counter chip in so will continue to work until the cells die.

Steve_xx

Conor wrote: »

It's not that at all, inamabilis. Not many people are aware of this but Dells batteries contain a chip with a counter on. It counts the number of times the battery has been cycled and when it hits a preset limit (OTTOMH 300 rings a bell), it stops the battery from being charged anymore or being registered as present. It does this no matter what status the cells in the batteries are actually in.
Apparently it is done for "our benefit to ensure that there is consistency in the duration a laptop will operate from a full charge". It damned well isn't. It's done so that Dell can sell you new batteries to replace perfectly good ones. I will bet money on this being what has happened to yours, Steve.

My advice to you is to get onto Ebay or mdsbattery.co.uk and buy an aftermarket one. They don't have this rip-off counter chip in so will continue to work until the cells die.

I think you might have hit the nail on the head. There is definitely a counter of some sort on it because after I'd had it for x years/months it started to flag up a mesage everytime I switched it on. The message was to the effect of "your battery might be passed its best". I got fed up of seeing the message and so I made an adjustment to the startup menu to stop it appearing. But it must continue to count in the background and now the battery appear to be disconnected from the laptop.

Regarding the lights. At the moment it is green, but the laptop shows that battery is "not present". Yesterday it was flashing orange and still showing as battery "not present".

So you think that there is something in the battery itself that has stopped it from working. I wonder if that can be de-programmed? Also, if I get a new battery I'm assuming that the laptop wont know it's new and that there's something in the new battery that will enable it to function as opposed to having to do something on the laptop to tell the laptop that a new battery is installed.

I had a quick look and note that prices vary from about £24 to around £90. The £24 ones are from China it seems. The problem could be that customs would levy a charge/duty/VAT if I got one from China, so it will probably be best if I can source a UK product

nick.simpson19

top tip for the future, dont buy from dell!!! Amount of people i have said this too and they usually ignore me and buy from them and 12 months down the line they say you were right i shouldnt have bought from dell!

Steve_xx

nick.simpson19 wrote: »

top tip for the future, dont buy from dell!!! Amount of people i have said this too and they usually ignore me and buy from them and 12 months down the line they say you were right i shouldnt have bought from dell!

I would buy another Dell. I've been happy with the laptop. Prior to that I had Acers and they didn't last very well. This is ok apart from this battery problem.

west_is_best

My Dell Inspiron 1501 did exactly the same about 2 months ago. Everytime I fired my laptop up, this sign came up that it doesnt recognise the battery. This lasted for about 6 weeks, then all of sudden the lappy was dead, it wouldnt fire up on the mains either by then... I contacted Dell only to find the motherboard was finished..

One tip for you, while the engineer was here replacing the motherboard I was over him like a rash watching him.... If you turn the lappy upside down, on the battery compartment you will see 5 little dots with a picture of a small bettery by its side... if you press the battery, the little dots light up to show if the battery is working or not....

Mind you, this is on a 1501 battery.... I dont know if yours is the same.

Good luck xxx

Conor_3

Steve_xx wrote: »

So you think that there is something in the battery itself that has stopped it from working. I wonder if that can be de-programmed?
I had a quick look and note that prices vary from about £24 to around £90. The £24 ones are from China it seems. The problem could be that customs would levy a charge/duty/VAT if I got one from China, so it will probably be best if I can source a UK product

There are people who claim to be able to reset the counter but it costs as much as those Chinese batteries. Just as a note, I got one of those chinese batteries for a Dell C600 through Ebay. Lasted twice as long as the original did as the capacity is higher and didn't get hammered by customs either. Only downside is the plastic needed a little trimming on one of the tabs so it'd lock in place properly.

Steve_xx

Well in that case it may be worth giving the chinese batteries a go. Meanwhile I'll have a look around the net and see if I can find any information on resetting the counter.