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    M15x Battery not Charging

    Discussion in 'Alienware M15x' started by aarpcard, Mar 31, 2011.

  1. aarpcard

    aarpcard Notebook Deity

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    My friend has a M15x laptop and is having a problem where the battery is not charging. The battery is recognized in windows and the quick menu power icon also shows the laptop as "Plugged in and Charging."

    The battery is at 0% capacity, is only at 18% wear, and is definitely NOT charging at all.

    Additionally the bios is A05. We are trying to upgrade to A09, but atm we are having serious issues downloading the new bios. It might stay that way for a few days.

    Everything has been tried, that I can think of. We have unplugged the battery and reinstalled it while on AC power booted into windows, we have updated the battery drivers in the device manager. We have tried disabling "Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery" in the device manager as well to no avail.

    The FN+F2 function also did not work.

    So, aside from updating the bios, does anyone have any ideas pertaining to how to get this battery to start holding a charge???
     
  2. djskorch

    djskorch Notebook Guru

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    the bios update should fix it. if not, its most likely the psu and you need to have it replaced.
     
  3. aarpcard

    aarpcard Notebook Deity

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    Just updated the bios to A09 and it didn't work. Any other ideas???
     
  4. inap

    inap .........................

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    Try this when the laptop is on and plugged in, take out the battery then wait a few minutes then put back in.
     
  5. inap

    inap .........................

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    also a power drain with the coin battery taken out too.
     
  6. aarpcard

    aarpcard Notebook Deity

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    Already tried both of those. No luck
     
  7. inap

    inap .........................

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    dang most likely its a bad battery then. if you still have warranty then call dell, if not i have a 6 cell for sell, heheh
     
  8. 015734

    015734 Notebook Guru

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    If you are mechanically/electrically inclined, fixing the battery often isn't too hard. The 6 cell is 3 series 2 parallel while the 9 is a 3S3P.

    The battery has a balancer, however, it only balances per group of 3 cells in series. As the battery ages, each of the 3 cells in series develops a different capacity. This leads to a balance issue which can't be corrected by the internal balancer (because it only balances groups of 3, not individual cells)

    Eventually one of the cells in the set of 3 "dies" (becomes very unbalanced) and this drops the entire voltage of that group down. The battery, recognizing this tries to match this set of 3's voltage with the other set or two of 3 cells, however, it is unable to because of the bad cell. The capacity of the entire pack declines and eventually the voltage in that group of 3 drops so low it triggers a safety mechanism which prevents charging overly-discharged batteries...

    I've pulled apart batteries in everything from Dell to Sony to HP to IBM (Lenovo) and if they used Lithium Ion cylindrical cells then 9/10 times it was one bad cell that killed the battery. It's kinda silly pulling apart a 12 cell battery knowing 1 cell killed the whole thing, however, this also makes it quite easy to fix

    Internal resistance of the cells should be matched when the battery is assembled to give it the best life expectancy, however, even this doesn't always work as well as it should in theory.

    I've never taken an Alienware battery apart before, however, I can bet you have 1 dead cell in one group of 3 that killed the entire battery. I used to take the good cells and use them to fix other batteries as well as use them in searchlights, etc... it was fun All you would have to do is replace the bad cell (replacing the entire group of 3 usually offers the best results) and you should be good to go. 18650's (the cells used in the battery) can be bought very cheaply these days... just make sure you get high quality ones.

    Obviously if the battery is under warranty that is infinitely easier, however, this is a fun DIY way to get more life out of a battery :)
     
  9. raven evo

    raven evo Notebook Consultant

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    @015734 LOL I actually enjoyed that read very intresting thanks you ^^