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    Inspiron 9400 odd battery issue

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by dastechnofuhrer, Oct 15, 2009.

  1. dastechnofuhrer

    dastechnofuhrer Newbie

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    Hi all

    I have a problem I'd like to ask you fine people for help on.
    Unfortunatley I can't find quite the same problem discussed here before.

    Dells being tempermental with batteries, I'm not entirely surprised that my Dell has started doing this:

    The battery status on screen says the battery is charging, and working normally, but the battery stays at 0% constantly. it will not charge at all.

    A little history:
    - This is my second battery, which is not a genuine Dell item but it used to charge fine when I bought it 6 months ago. It gradually lost charge after the current charger stopped charging, and fell to 0%
    - I'm on my second genuine Dell charger (the first would get hot and occasionally switch off or not charge the battery)
    - The connections on the battery and the laptop APPEAR to be ok
    - I have been using my laptop on mains only power for a couple of months now with battery inserted, constantly at 0% charge

    I've read that a BIOS flash might solve it (I can't do this as the system requires at least 10% battery charge. any way around this perhaps or not worth the risk?)
    I've read that there is a common problem with the motherboard that needs fixing.
    Anything to do with a possible flat CMOS battery? (im not aware mine is flat)
    OR
    is my non-gen battery to blame? I would buy a new genunine Dell battery if I can be reasonably sure it will solve the problem.

    I'd like to see if my battery would charge in another Inspiron. Or try to charge it externally (any way I can do that safely or wire my charger directly to the battery or will that not work? External chargers are just as expensive as a new battery).

    Thanks! :)
     
    dastechnofuhrer, Oct 15, 2009
    #1