how long does a 6 cell battery typically last?

i've had my e1705 for a bit more than 1/2 a year now and i found it strange that my laptop ran out of battery a few minutes before my class ended. orginally when i had the laptop, it was able to last about 1 hour and 50 minutes - 2 hours and 10 minutes on a full charge. during the class, it barely lasted an hour and 15 minutes or so which surprised me.

when i finally got access to a power outlet, i checked out the battery information on NHC and the program reported a 40% wear level on the battery.... is this normal for a typical 6 cell battery? i know that the battery is supposed to charge less and less over time, but i've only had it for 7 months and i don't even run the laptop on battery that often... maybe about 3 hours a week for the weeks that i have classes.

the battery wear level literally jumped from 15% to 27% from about 2 days ago, and now it dropped to 40%.

 

normal is a setting on a washingmachine. as for it being possible, it is entirely possible, in fact some of the brands that dell use tend to wear down very quickly. some times batteries just begin to deteriorate and that causes them to jump wear levels.

as for the typical battery life for a 6-cell, it depends on the make/model of laptop, how it's configured, and how it's used.

 

I have a Dell D620 and my battery started doing that until it was finally not even recognized by my laptop. Neither my primary 4-cell nor my module 6-cell are recognized (not even in the BIOS). I need to have it looked at by Dell support.

 

it was just weird that the wear level jumped by about 25% in a matter of two days.....

now that i think about it, the snowstorm in the north east caused my campus to have a blackout yesterday. shortly after the blackout, power returned for a few seconds before blacking out again. i didn't get the chance to pull the laptop plug off before that happened...

i'll prolly give dell a call soon... the only problem is that i'm not sure if DHL does shipping/pickups from the dorms so it might have to wait until the end of the semester

 

Check out chrisyano's battery guide. =) I hope the information within it will be of help.

 

40% wear in 7 months not normal despite what Phillip is saying. Battery wear's typically in the 1% per month range, unless you're really a road warrior and draining the battery just about daily.

I'd have a talk with Dell. They cover the batteries up to 1 year AFAIK.

 

Battery usage also depends on how much of the computer's resources you are using at the time. Game playing will use more resources than editing a MS Word document. Fan usage is a dead giveaway that your battery is being drained faster..

 

if you are a road warrior then it is entirely possible and absolutely probably that in 7 months it gets a wear of 40%. another factor is the manufacture. I've had three batteries one died 3months in, one is around 35% and less than a year old, another is ~24% same age, and another is ~12% same age(most frequently used, and each of these three is a different brands.

I should have made it clear before, that the wear of the battery is solely determined by use, brand, and power draw from the battery. Sure, you can call dell, and if you can give them legitamite proof that it is a faulty battery, then they might agree to give you a new one. But be careful in your wording, depending on what tech rep you get, you might have dificulty convincing the fault is with dell and not you.

I'm not saying don't call dell, I'm saying to prepare yourself with lots of hard evidence, so there is no way that they can deny you a replacement battery, if in fact it is a faulty battery.

good luck with getting a new battery, if you do, let me know, I'd like to try again to get a replacement for that battery that gave out on me.(the first time, they argued with me for two hours straight and wouldn't accept the fact that they sent me a faulty battery)

 

well base on my experience with customer support, you just have to keep calling/getting a new customer representative until you get a nice one who would replace it without much fuss.

but honestly i was getting an hour and 45 minutes worth of battery just a few days ago. and i dont think its a matter of calibration, if i use my laptop i usually use it till the warning light stops blinking.

 

lol i just got a message from windows telling me to replace my battery and how its about to die.... i checked the wear level on the battery again and now its at a whopping 56% wear level. something is definitely wrong... the wear level is increasing by double digits every day.

 

that sounds like something Asus Laptops were going through recently, it was so bad that they ran a poll in the Asus forum to prove to the company that something was wrong. I wonder if the same thing is happening with dell.