Swapping battery during "sleep" state?

I read in the manual of my M1330 that the battery could be swapped out when the computer is in the sleep state, provided the swap was performed in under a minute. I have tried this multiple times, and it doesn't work for me. Is there some setting I have to enable for this to work? Does this work or not work for anyone else?
Thanks

 

You can't take the battery out of any computer while it is sleeping and not plugged in. It won't have any power to keep it running, sleeping or not. You can only do it when the computer is shut down or you hibernated.

-J.B.

 

Quote directly from Dell Manual:
NOTICE: If you choose to replace the battery with the computer in Sleep state, you
have up to 1 minute to complete the battery replacement before the computer shuts
down and loses any unsaved data.

from this site: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xpsm1330/en/om/RW4910P.pdf

 

yes, it only works in hibernation mode as far as I know. Dell might mean hibernation by "sleep" as it is relatively the same thing

 

In the past, if you turned your computer off to save power or extend your mobile PC's battery life, it took a long time for it to start back up when you wanted to use it again. With Windows Vista, you can easily and quickly use your PC whenever you want, while still preserving battery life. The default "off" state is now the new Sleep power state. Just press the power button on the Start menu or on your PC, and your PC will automatically save your current session to memory, and then quickly enter into a very low power state. It will also save your session to the hard drive, so you can access it even if the memory loses power. Then, when you want to resume your computer use, just press the power button on your PC. Your PC will turn on in seconds, and be just how you left it last time.

Unlike Windows XP, which offered the different Standby and Hibernate modes, Windows Vista combines the benefits of both modes into Sleep to simplify the entire process for users. For optimal speed and performance when putting the PC to sleep, and when resuming it, purchase a new PC with Windows Vista preinstalled, rather than upgrading an existing PC.


From the Windows Vista site: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/features/details/fastsleepandresume.mspx

 

My Vista choices are sleep and hibernate, and it looks to me like Sleep mode is fairly similar to Xp's Standby, so I don't know what Microsoft means that Sleep is both in one.

Also, if the power will not be removed and hibernate and standby were combined in this new sleep mode, then you will have wasted the time it takes to write the state to the disk, since suspend to RAM is pretty instantaneous, whereas writing to HDD takes longer.

So I wonder what the point is, other than if someone puts their laptop in standby while on battery, and then forgets about it, that the state will have been written to hdd, so when he powers the system back up after draining his battery, he will have not lost his changes.

 

I don't have a hibernate choice, only sleep. (and I thought the vista choices were sleep and "hybrid sleep") I understand that macs for a long time have been able to swap the battery under "sleep" (macbook users say you've got about 2 minutes to swap) and I think MS was trying to replicate this. I think the point is to make the two states into one, more user friendly state. Anyway, from the documentation from MS and Dell, it seems like this (swap battery during sleep) should work, but for me it isn't. Anyone have an idea about how i should pursue this? Since it is included in Dell's manual as a feature, should I call dell tech support?
If yes, does anyone have the "special" XPS number to call for tech support?

 

As far as I know, the Hibernate option does not show up on the start menu(there might be a way to enable it, but I don't know..). However, the option is still on your computer:

Start > Control Panel > Power Options
Click on 'Choose what the power buttons do', and you will be able to pick hibernate as an option when either closing the lid, or pressing the power button.

I personally have hibernate when pressing power button, and sleep when closing the lid.

Hybrid sleep is a different animal. If your computer is sleeping, and the battery approaches a critical level, the computer will turn back on, write the memory to the HD, and go into hibernation. You can check that you have that feature on by doing the following:
Start > Control Panel > Power Options > Change Plan Settings > Change Advanced Power Settings
A 'Power Options' Window will pop up, and look for Hybrid Sleep under Sleep, but chances are it's already enabled.

What the dell manual says about swapping the battery while sleeping just doesn't sound right, but it's not a typo either since they mention the 1 minute limit part(my Inspiron's manual says exactly the same thing). I guess you don't lose anything by asking them about it, but I wouldn't get my hopes to high. lol maybe they thought nobody would read the 'removing the battery' section

Anyways, I don't know a specific number for Dell XPS notebooks, I think the same number is for all customers, but you can always email [email protected] instead of having to wait on the phone...

 

There is absolutely no way that is accurate. The computer is still powered on when in its sleep state, and if you remove the battery the power will be lost. You can remove the battery when in hibernation because the machine is powered off.. and will remain off (not draining ANY power or using the battery) until you turn it back on.

 

Well I called the XPS technical support line, and after repeatedly swapping the battery under sleep and restarting and demonstrating what seems to be obvious to everyone else on here, but flies in the face of the manual, the support claim was elevated above the tech that I spoke to.
By the way, the XPS support line works great, I called at 0130 EST and was put right through to a tech after giving my express service code.

I'll post up what the answer is from Dell when i get one, thanks for all your help. How come I'm the only one who reads the manual?

 

Believe it or not, this actually does work - sometimes. I have a Latitude D600 with XP that I can do this on 100% of the time. Yes, you heard me right, I can put the laptop in standby, with NO AC power, and swap the battery, and then bring the computer back out of standby. It is extremely convenient - it takes a total of about 20 seconds to get back to working. I do not know if Dell has included an internal battery, if it somehow uses the CMOS battery (I wouldn't think it would have enough power for that), or if it is using the charge left in the capacitors, or exactly how it works, but trust me - it works, I do it all the time.

We have several laptops in our organizations, and I also have tested this on a Latitude D630C with Vista. I have gotten it to work only once - the rest of the time it does not work. I have called Dell tech support on this and they treated me like I was some sort of moron - telling me of course you can't swap the battery in suspend with no AC battery. I try to tell them that yes, it does work, I am an IT professional and I'm not an idiot, I understand the difference between sleep, hibernate, shutting down, and also the hybrid sleep in Vista, but they just don't believe me. I've even done it with them while on the phone, and they just shrug their shoulders and say, well it's not supposed to do that.

This is why the manual reads that you can do it if you do it in less than a minute (although that's not in the manuals for my models). It really does work - or at least it is supposed to, for certain models anyway. The problem is that it doesn't seem to work reliably (except for my D600 which works every time) so you never know if you're going to lose your data or not.

 

I would have thought the caps would store enough power in them for a swap, it made sense to me, but I can tell you for 100% it doesn't work on my laptop and it is annoying that it doesn't work.

 

Might make sense in Vista as "Sleep" is actually a combination of Standby and Hibernation (as in XP). When you Sleep in Vista it saves the RAM contents to hard drive (as per hibernation) and then powers down all but the RAM (as per Standby). This allows the system to return to the same state even if power is lost and apparently the standby power to the RAM will be removed after a certain time and then you are fully in Hibernation.

I suppose if the swap is done when the Sleep state has passed from Standby to Hibernation it should work but then if what MS says about Sleep is true it should always work whatever (as the RAM contents is saved in hiberfil.sys at the start anyway just in case).