Can PC shops charge up batteries?

RichT

Hi techies.

I have an Inspiron 1525 laptop that shows the battery as 'plugged in not charging.'
I have had a look in some forums, and this seems to be a known issue with them. I bought a spare battery when the originals Last flicker of power went. This has now happened to the spare. I realise I will have to bite the bullett and get a new laptop soon, but I was wondering if PC repair shops have the facility to charge up batteries, which woluld get me out of a hole (temporarily)

Thanks in advance for any help offered.

yoyo

RichT wrote: »

Hi techies.

I have an Inspiron 1525 laptop that shows the battery as 'plugged in not charging.'
I have had a look in some forums, and this seems to be a known issue with them. I bought a spare battery when the originals Last flicker of power went. This has now happened to the spare. I realise I will have to bite the bullett and get a new laptop soon, but I was wondering if PC repair shops have the facility to charge up batteries, which woluld get me out of a hole (temporarily)

Thanks in advance for any help offered.

It could be the battery your using is dead (sometimes cheap replacement ones don't work well), or the power jack on the laptop has become loosened. Have you tried another battery in it? Are you using an official Dell charger?

Nick

BloodBath

People don't know how to treat laptop batteries so they usually die pretty quickly.

If you want a battery to last a long time do the following.

The first charge should be a complete charge without turning the laptop on.

You should never leave your laptop plugged in while using it unless you take the battery out.

Do not charge the battery until it fully or is close to fully empty.

coylemj

BloodBath wrote: »

You should never leave your laptop plugged in while using it unless you take the battery out.

If you have the power settings in the laptop set correctly, you can prevent constant topping up and it should be safe to leave the battery in the machine when it's plugged in. I never take the battery out and these days can get 3 years from a battery no problem.

BloodBath

I'd imagine there are more elegant solutions than taking the battery out alright.

I'm sure modern laptops have features to help reduce this. I haven't bought a laptop in a while

Duggy747

The Inspiron 1525 are notorious for the batteries refusing charges. Lots of times due to incorrect chargers, I've seen universal / "compatible" ones disable the battery so it wouldn't even accept a charge from a genuine one.

That being said, a replacement battery can fail at the drop of a hat, too, depending on it's quality.

Are you able to try with a different Dell charger? Is it a genuine charger you're using?

Cuddlesworth

BloodBath wrote: »

People don't know how to treat laptop batteries so they usually die pretty quickly.

If you want a battery to last a long time do the following.

The first charge should be a complete charge without turning the laptop on.

You should never leave your laptop plugged in while using it unless you take the battery out.

Do not charge the battery until it fully or is close to fully empty.

Lithium Ion battery's have defined lifetimes and they are in a constant state of decay. None of the above makes any real difference to their lifespan, it only really applied to the old nickel based battery's.

You can extend the life of a lithium battery by keeping it at a constant 60% charge and by keeping it cool, but its not really worth the effort in the long term.

keyboard_cat

BloodBath wrote: »

People don't know how to treat laptop batteries so they usually die pretty quickly.

If you want a battery to last a long time do the following.

The first charge should be a complete charge without turning the laptop on.

You should never leave your laptop plugged in while using it unless you take the battery out.

Do not charge the battery until it fully or is close to fully empty.

and apparently you also dont know how to treat your batteries the first charge wont make a difference as batteries are usually half charged when you get the laptop also its best for the battery if it never hits 100% stop charging at about 90-95% and lastly never let the batter completely die it causes damage drain it to about 10% then start charging again

but the easier option is to ignore the rules and after 2-3 years pick up a new battery on amazon for 30 euro and save yourself the hassel

RichT

Thanks for taking the time to reply guys.

I phoned PC World for a bit of advice (after tying two local independents first and getting no answer :eek:.) 'Most likely' problem within the laptop as it should still power up when plugged in (as suggested earlier.) 'Unlikely' to be charger (original Dell) as there is power light on charger, and it brightens the screen when plugged in.......... well it used to.

Thanks again......

coylemj

keyboard_cat wrote: »

and apparently you also dont know how to treat your batteries the first charge wont make a difference as batteries are usually half charged when you get the laptop also its best for the battery if it never hits 100% stop charging at about 90-95% and lastly never let the batter completely die it causes damage drain it to about 10% then start charging again

but the easier option is to ignore the rules and after 2-3 years pick up a new battery on amazon for 30 euro and save yourself the hassel

Nonsense.

Laptops and the batteries themselves have enough intelligence to stop the battery from running down to 0% so the user doesn't have to worry about that. If I'm running off the battery I have my final warning set to 3% at which stage I plug it in.

Charging the battery up to 100% is perfectly acceptable, I do it all the time, I have a battery that is two years old this month and it's still at >80% of design capacity.

Most devices such as mobile phones and laptops come with instructions which explicitly tell you to fully charge the battery before you use the device.

Typically I get more than three years out of laptop batteries by ignoring your advice.

BloodBath

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Lithium Ion battery's have defined lifetimes and they are in a constant state of decay. None of the above makes any real difference to their lifespan, it only really applied to the old nickel based battery's.

You can extend the life of a lithium battery by keeping it at a constant 60% charge and by keeping it cool, but its not really worth the effort in the long term.

You might be right about letting the power drain and fully charging but when it comes to using the laptop while leaving it plugged in with the battery in then no. This applies to these batteries just as much and is the main cause of shortened battery life.

Storing it (the battery) in the fridge at around 40-60% charge when it's not in use is supposed to increase the lifespan a lot as well.

keyboard_cat

coylemj wrote: »

Nonsense.

Laptops and the batteries themselves have enough intelligence to stop the battery from running down to 0% so the user doesn't have to worry about that. If I'm running off the battery I have my final warning set to 3% at which stage I plug it in.

Charging the battery up to 100% is perfectly acceptable, I do it all the time, I have a battery that is two years old this month and it's still at >80% of design capacity.

Most devices such as mobile phones and laptops come with instructions which explicitly tell you to fully charge the battery before you use the device.

Typically I get more than three years out of laptop batteries by ignoring your advice.

my advice is the absolute ideal way to keep use a battery but i dont even adhere to it and i generally do what i want with my batteries and they work fine for years. however just because you have a battery thats 3 years and lost only 20% of its initial capacity dosnt mean what i said was nonsense
my sources-im an electronic and computer engineer!!
your sources - a laptop battery...
i win

Cuddlesworth

I managed a stock of about 2k laptops. You could literally find a dead battery in a laptop, trace back to the original shipment of laptops and find 99% of the other laptops in that shipment had dead batteries too. We had 1 year old laptops with dead batteries and we had(when I left) 3 year old laptops with working batteries.

Battery's decay is from point of first manufacture. From when its made, to when its shipped to the plant for stock, from when its dropped into the box with your laptop and from when it arrives into your possession can be a really short or long span of time.

So your experience with how you treated your battery holds very little against the actual reality. Similar to all other goods and situations, I might have been the only person with a Lada that worked. Still didn't make it a reliable car.

Capt'n Midnight

BloodBath wrote: »

Do not charge the battery until it fully or is close to fully empty.

Forget this.

Letting Lithium or Lead Acid drop too low is one of the quickest ways of killing them.

The guaranteed way of killing any type of battery is to keep trying to drain power from it when any of the cells is empty. The empty cell will then be put in reverse and will be irreversibly damage.


Change your power settings so that your battery doesn't get too low and you get less out of the battery today, but it won't wear out as quickly. It also means you are less likely to drain your batter completely.


Overcharging is a function of the charger. At this stage it should not be a problem. Though in an ideal word you'd be able to set a limit of 90-95% as a maximum charge. The problem is not that the charger keeps sending current in, it's that the limits set on the controller are too high.


Ideally you'd charge your battery to 90% and only discharge to 40%
yes this means you would only get 50% of the battery hours out of it. But should last years longer.