Dell Battery

gjchester

Cat72 wrote: »

I know what you are saying about batteries wearing down but I rarely used my laptop and the battery wore down.
If I had been using it everyday fine, but it packed in within a very short space of time.
I do genuinely think that Dell have a problem with them.

I'm not saying Dell may have a problem, but it happens actoss the industry, I've seen it in IBM, HP/Compaqs and Fujitsu's.

If you rarely use it and leave the battery discharged it is the best way to kill it. Lithium batteries need to be stored charged, and people forget and don't, or the close the lid and the laptop goes into stanby rather than shutting down and that drains them.

It's not a Dell issue it's the battery chemistry at fault. The fact it's reported a lot in Dells is more because there are more Dell laptops per se used as home machines than others. I've seen it IBM's but as thinkpads usually start about a grand they are not often bought as home laptops.

Look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery it's not technical but discribes some of the problems with shelf life and aging. It also gives examples how the capacity is dependsant on temperature, and how dropping below 2.5V per cell makes it effectivly unrechargeable on normal equipment.

lincoln2tg

My Inspiron 6400 battery died after 1 year use, I got a dell 6400 battery replacement( from 8eshop.com/laptop-battery/dell-inspiron-6400-battery.htm only $79) for the low cost reason, now this battery use 5 months and works good.