battery charged indicator?

I've been a Mac user for about 10 years and just purchased and received my first Windows laptop, an Inspiron 6000. It seems quite impressive and I'm excited to get it up and running. One thing I cannot find an answer to after a web and forums search is related to a battery charge indicator. I understand the lights on the bottom tell me how much charge is left... useful when unplugged. But, I can't figure out if there is a way to have something visible on the laptop light up to indicate it is fully vs partially chaged while plugged into the power adapter? When plugged into the wall, none of the LEDs on the 6000 light up to indicate it's charging. Have I missed a setting somewhere? Thanks in advance for any clarification on this obviously newbie question

 

is there a little battery or plug icon near your clock? if not go to properties...screen saver....power...and then advanced.

thats how it is on my inspiron 9300 so it should be the same.

 

Thanks doobie. I am actually wondering if there is an indicator on the exterior of the laptop... something I cam see while it is plugged in but closed like an LED.

 

those 3 lights on the right hinge? the very right one is the battery indicator.

 

when you first buy the dell, the battery i think is fully charged or so dell says so it wont tell you that it is charging.

but if you do drain the battery, and plug it in, then the farthest to the right that has a shape of a battery with a lightning going through, that is the charging led. that will only light up when it is charging.

 

For some reason, I thought that one the bottom of the notebook, next to the battery, there were little lights that would light up when you pushed a button and it would let you know how much it is charged...anyone confirm? I've seen it in reviews.

 

well you can do fn+f3 and that will pop up a battery indicator on your screen.

Like Drumfu describe, the battery indicator light is on the far right within the 3 indicator lights. When you have it plugged in, it will blink even min or two to indicate that it is charging. Just in case you aren't sure about it being unplugged, it will flash orange when it has a certain percentage left. This is just warning you that your battery is getting low, but not in the critical stage yet. Once it stays orange, that is when you are critically low and it would be a good idea to save all of your work or find the a/c adapter. You can the percentages for when it warns in Dell's Quickset or in power management located in the display properties.

SG

 

Thanks for the feedback to all. I was under the impression the far right indicator (which looks like a battery ) was the right one, but mine has not lit up since plugging in the power adapter. It sounds like this won't happen until I use the battery down and then recharge but this was not intuitive to me. Also, in reference to above, I believe the 5 green lights on the bottom of the 6000 represent the amount of overall charge the battery has... it's remaining capacity. Less lights indicates it is less capable of a full charge and in need of replacement. Please correct me if I have this wrong. Thanks again!

 

You are correct.

 

no. it shows how much charge is remaining in the battery at the moment.

if the batt indicator is off when plugged in, it means it's fully charged.

all this is in your user manual.