My POS 1525 is not charging, suggestion?

I'm very pissed off, my this piece of crap dell is only a year and 4 months old. The case has been falling apart and now my battery is not charging.

Are all dells complete wastes of money like this?? My much cheaper Acer outlasted this hunk of crap.

Anyhow, according to the computer my battery is dead and needs to be replaced, but why the hell does the battery have such a crap life?? or is it something else? This laptop has spent 90% of its life on the A/C charger

 

OK first things first, calm down. You might be frustrated with your laptop, but nobody here wants to hear you swear - it is totally unnecessary.

Now to my knowledge the case falling apart and cracking is not a known fault of the Inspiron 1525, certainly not in less than 2 years. However, it is only made of plastic, and so care needs to be taken with it. Did you purchase it from Dell directly? If so, did you get just the 1 year warranty or more? Might be worth typing in your service number into their website ( here) and checking your warranty status; it might still be covered.

In the event that it is not; where does it tell you your battery needs replacing? Li-on batteries have a limited lifespan, which does not depend on your using the battery or not (they begin to degrade the moment they are manufactured). One year and four months does seem a short time however.

If you need a new one, well you need a new one. I'd recommend shopping around on eBay as you can pick them up a lot cheaper than from Dell (where they are currently charging around £100 GBP).

Anyhow, that depends on how you know you need a new battery. If it is just because it is not charging, well it is possible that it could be the power supply. Does the laptop work with the battery removed (but on AC power)?

 

Well when you left the laptop in the AC adapter 90% of its life, was the battery also in there? If so, that's the reason why your battery has degraded so much.

But as mentioned, 1year + 4 months is a VERY short time for a battery to completely die out

If you leave the laptop in the AC most of the time, take out the battey once its done charging cuz the laptop will continue to input energy into the battery as the battery will always drain itself of power even when plugged into the AC and at 100%. The more you charge a laptop battery, the worse it becomes.

If you leave the battery in there and its 100%, think about it as this: A battery can't stay at 100% forever right? If you leave it out, when u put it back in the next day it'll at least be at 99.x%, never at the full 100% u charged it at.
So by leaving it in there constantly, the second the battery reaches 99.9999%, the AC adapter will put power back into the battery to recharge it so that it keeps a stable 100%.

When you get your new battery, once charged up, try to take out the battery if its plugged in and you know you're gonna be using it for a while; otherwise unless its only for like, 2h or something dont even bother as I myself find it too inconvenient to constantly unplug and plug after every short interval after charging.

 

That'd be good if it had a connector like the Acers, but this dell's cable slips out all the time.

fragilexx- since when was "crap" a swear word?? I think even rated G movies use that word.

Anyhow, on vista if you go into power management there is a tab for "battery condition" this where it tells me that the battery is fubar and needs replacing.

 

I am not going to repeat the words you used, but perhaps swearing is more common place to you, so much so that you don't even notice that the first expletive is 3 words in, and not the term you believe is not a curse word.

I don't care what is allowed in the movies; doesn't change that your parents wouldn't have clipped you round the ear for saying it.

 

lol, ok dude whatever. I wouldnt ever consider those words swear words.

I pulled this off of google and correct me if i'm, wrong, but it seems like "pissed" wouldnt even be a swear word in england:

"I don't have a link but the term "being pissed off" means to be very angry about something. That's the American meaning.... If you say, "I'm pissed" in England, it will mean you are very drunk."

 

Rather than get into the technicalities of swearing I am simply going to say two things:

Would you want your children saying it?
Do you not at least consider it a vulgar term that should not be used in polite company?

I hate to think what your answers will be if you base your code of ethics on what appears in the movies.

Let's not get into the 'fubar' or 'pos' abbreviations either, otherwise this will be going rather seriously off topic. My point, which you will either consider or not, is that politeness and good etiquette are 100% free. Without them, you will not get much help here.

If Vista has determined that you need a new battery, you could double check this in the BIOS, but other than that, well you simply need a new battery. I strongly disagree with the post from HellDemon in that, whilst having the battery in place when on AC power will alter the chemical composition of the battery, it will not degrade its performance that fast. In fact I strongly advocate keeping your battery in place as it serves as a power supply if the electricity goes out, or your AC adaptor get's pulled out of place. Plus some laptops can leave some exposed parts if you remove the battery. Not many, and it's not normally that many parts exposed, but it still means more chance of dust and dirt getting inside, which is generally bad for the lifespan of your notebook (due to additional heat build up etc).

You did not mention anything about the warranty, I take this to mean you do not have the extended warranty? If so, you've still got options. Depending upon where you live, there are parts replacement companies that can offer individual components specifically for your machine at relatively cheap prices (such as the partspeople), or there is always eBay to buy a non-working one and steal what you need.

 

+1 for all the reasons posted.

Not adding fuel to the fire but if my kids (2 girls, 8 and 10) said those words to me, anyone else or just in general they'd be grounded.

 

Plus with regards to HellDemons post; Li-on batteries tend not to trickle charge.

I know for a fact that my Inspiron is setup so that the battery only charges once it drops below 95%. Most laptops will do the same, but some will have this setting user changeable, and some will not but it will not be 95%.

When using AC power, your laptop does not drain the battery at all. However, li-on batteries lose charge whether being used or not, and it is at the same rate of 'de-charging' when powered off completely in comparison to being powered on but on AC power.

The problem is that li-on batteries do not like heat, in fact if you look at the packaging it will say something along the lines of "keep this product in a cool dry place when storing". Unfortunately, your notebook gets warm, and some of this heat will dissipate towards the battery. Still, my point stands that this degradation is often not as much as people expect, and it's not worth the risk of losing data by not having it in place. I myself have owned many many notebooks, and of the more recent ones I have had no battery last less than 3 years and all stay in place 100% of the time.

With regards to my previous comments; I am definitely not trying to start a 'flame war', just merely pointing out that these forums are frequented by an audience with a wide age range. Care should be taken when using would could be considered by some as vulgar language. Not least because there is no controls over who could see it, but also because many people will simply ignore the post entirely (kind of defeats the whole object of making the post).

 

On the off chance that i have kids(i sure as hell hope not). if they are old enough to operate the internet, they would be old enough to say "pissed".

And i do not consider it vulgar at all. Especially in the context of meaning "angry/annoyed". I might not approve of it during a dinner situation, but IMO its not inappropriate in a casual conversion.

Anyhow, i did not get the extended warranty. I did do a google search and managed to pick up a new battery for 60$ shipped. hopefully that will do the trick.

 

Oh please just leave it.

I've given you advice on your problem, I've also told you I do not approve of the language you have used. Somebody else has agreed with my comments, but we are not moderators here.
You have a choice, you have chosen the way I figured you would, good for you, now leave it alone.
I now have a choice, and I choose to refrain from discussing this any further with you. My opinions have not changed, I can simply no longer be bothered with what will clearly become an off topic argument.

Hope your battery does the job, if not then post back. Somebody is sure to help.