Generic Battery Stopped Working

Hey All, I was hoping that someone can help me on this issue. I own a VGN-CR290 for about 2 years and the battery finally gave up . After doing some research online, I decided to buy the generic battery to save some money. I bought it off of eBay and followed the directions provided in the CD that came with it. After that, I was using it for about 4 months before I ran into a problem this week. My laptop ran out of the battery once and it shut down before I was able to plugged in the AC adapter. After that, I wasn't able to use the battery anymore. When I have the battery in, I couldn't start my laptop, even when the AC adapter is plugged in. However, if I took the battery out, I was able to start the laptop on AC adapter only.

I've been looking for solutions online but haven't been able to find one. I contacted the seller twice since 2 days ago, but have yet to heard back from him. To be honest, I don't have too much hope on them providing me help, considering I bought the item from them 4 months ago.

Anyways, I was hoping that someone had the same experience before and can help me figuring out what to do. I'm using Windows 7 OS and have been treating my battery nicely =)

Thanks in advance!

 

Well, there is nothing we can do to recover your generic battery... I bought one for my Latitude off eBay and it's in the same boat as yours...

You could try to re-calibrate it, using this guide.

Otherwise, you get what you pay for.

 

Thanks for responding. Not sure if I can try to recalibrate the battery since I can't even plug it into my laptop. How long did your battery last? I found it weird since it was working perfectly for 4 months until one day I left it uncharged and then it never came back to life. Wondering if other people experienced the same thing or had better luck with generic batteries. Forgot to mention that the battery that I purchased was VGP-BPS9.

 

Mine lasted around 4-5 months. I've learned from my mistakes, and shall never buy a generic one again. Mine wasn't sudden death like yours, it gradually died over a few months.

 

I have a generic that has lasted 2 years now.

Generics will work fine, but are more fagile. Li-ion batteries like to be at 50%. The further you stray from that, either over charging or discharging, the faster they wear out. A good factory battery can handle you running it 100% dead on occasion, a generic will die a horrific death after just one or two times of this. The reason I suspect is that the factory battery has a better cut-off and shuts down before the cells go 100% dead, the generics, don't. Li-on do NOT deal well with being completely discharged.

As mentioned, don't expect it to last as long. With luck, a nice generic will get you 2 years, most likely between 1 and 2. A factory battery usually will get 3-4 years. In both cases, you sometimes get more, sometimes less. Figure out which works best for you.

If you plan on upgrading within 2 years, a generic is perfect, or if you don't mind replacing it again. Or like one of my older systems, the generic was $5 and the factory battery was $350. It is far more cost effective to replace it 3 times than buying a factory battery.