Battery Life

melbury

I have a Dell Inspiron 6400 notebook which is just under two years old. I started getting a message saying that the battery would need to be replaced a couple of months ago, but now the message says the battery can no longer provide sufficient power to the system and must be replaced.

Does anyone know if this about the normal life of a battery - i.e. less than two years? I had hoped to get a bit more out of it than that. Machine still works fine on mains supply.

Of course a new battery can only be purchased from Dell at about £120:eek:

John_Gray

Laptop batteries last a variable length of time, depending somewhat on how they're used. Two years is a bit short, but not significantly so. You can probably get non-Dell batteries for about 2/3rds of the Dell amount.

Later: just did some Googling, and you can get a genuine Dell battery from Amazon for £60! (But be careful to check whether you need a six-cell or a nine-cell one...).

andy2004

I too did a google and found this

http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=Dell+Inspiron+6400+battery&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=CidGSuSlMJeQjAfRnMxj&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&ct=title&resnum=780123521
prices range from £28.28 plus, the higher the mAh the longer it should last in usage per charge.
and according to my googling they are 9cell, but i guess you would have to copy the serial down and google that for a 100% compatible one.]
most seem to be around 4400mAh though.

melbury

andy2004 wrote: »

I too did a google and found this

http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=Dell+Inspiron+6400+battery&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=CidGSuSlMJeQjAfRnMxj&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&ct=title&resnum=780123521
prices range from £28.28 plus, the higher the mAh the longer it should last in usage per charge.
and according to my googling they are 9cell, but i guess you would have to copy the serial down and google that for a 100% compatible one.]
most seem to be around 4400mAh though.

Thanks, but I read on an earlier thread that you shouldn't use compatibles because they could explode or catch fire:eek: I honestly don't know if that is true, but it did put me off a bit.

fwor

melbury wrote: »

because they could explode or catch fire

It's not just compatibles that can do that - IIRC Sony had to recall a load of original battery packs last year because they were at risk of catching fire.

The risk is greater with some "compatibles" which don't have the over-current and over-temperature protection circuits that originals do.

The level of risk is probably exaggerated by laptop manufacturers, for obvious financial reasons - I've used "compatible" laptop batteries for ages, and never had one overheat. However, I know that rechargeables in general can get very hot, as a few years ago I had a set of NiMH batteries melt through the plastic casing of a CD player while being charged...