reset battery or new battery

I have a dell inspirion 2650 that is three years old. It stays plugged on
my desk most of the time. Tonight I went portable and the battery only
lasted about 15 minutes. It seemed to go a lot longer than that.
Is there a way I can reset the battery so it takes a full charge, or do I
need to get a new battery?
TIA
JD

 

Three years is usually pushing the limit on notebook battery life. Replace.

.... Ben Myers

 

you will need a new battery. get it cheaper from ebay.

if you want to keep the laptop plugged into power all the time, then
pull the battery until it is needed.

 

Before spending any money, completely discharge your battery and then
charge it up again.

Eventhough, it has been three years you said you have it plugged in
most of the time so it would not have worked the battery a lot.
Li-ions dont need to be recalibrated this way but the
electronics/circuits within the battery pack would benefit from this
type of recalibration. As they tend to screw things up even if the
battery cells are fine.

If this fails to get you battery going then yes you may have to buy a
new battery.

Good luck.

Battery Wizard
http://www.ComputerBatteries.co.uk

 

---- pull the battery until it is needed. ----

Will this void the warrenty or cause overvoltage?
I have a Averatec 6120.
Tnx

 

Ah, another user finds out what the consequences are of leaving his
expensive lithium battery in his laptop when it is continuously run on
AC power for long periods of time.

The battery is probably toast. If you get a new battery (for
traveling), consider leaving it out of the laptop when you are on AC
power and instead spening $30 (or less) on a UPS.

 

BS. If he hadn't left the battery in the computer when it was not being
used, but rather was being either overcharged and/or over heated, it
would be essentially as good as new. Lithium based batteries are
extremely stable, and if not abused can last the better part of a decade
or even longer. But they won't take either long-term overcharging or
long-term overheating.

 

NO.

 

Why is it an issue? I would have assumed that

1) A battery would be safe when charged with a low current.
2) The charger would sense the charge state and reduce the current to a
low rate.

OR

If the battery must not be charged when full, then the charging
circuitry would remove all power to the battery.

It seems hard to believe that is not a design flaw, if that is allowed
to damage a battery.

As someone else said, at 3 years old, the battery is quite old anyway.


--
Dave K

http://www.southminster-branch-line.org.uk/

Please note my email address changes periodically to avoid spam.
It is always of the form: month-year@domain. Hitting reply will work
for a couple of months only. Later set it manually. The month is
always written in 3 letters (e.g. Jan, not January etc)

 

At least part of the problem, and perhaps most of it, is heat which
comes from the laptop (CPU, disk drive, power supply, etc.) rather than
from the battery, but to which the battery is "exposed".

But that fact notwithstanding, it's just about certain from annecdotal
evidence that many if not most models of laptops and batteries still
also manage to apply enough of a charge to fully charged batteries to do
additional damage over long periods of time (months, years).

In the real world, things don't necessarily work the way that you would
think that they would in an ideal world.

 

That does make sense.

It is very easy to cut the current to *very* small values, but the heat
is an issue I would accept it more difficult to solve, and perhaps not
soluble given you can't put much thermal insulation in a package the
size of a laptop.

dave


--
Dave K

http://www.southminster-branch-line.org.uk/

Please note my email address changes periodically to avoid spam.
It is always of the form: month-year@domain. Hitting reply will work
for a couple of months only. Later set it manually. The month is
always written in 3 letters (e.g. Jan, not January etc)

 

Yeah, what he said, but bring it up in the BIOS or DOS or something
that won't shut down automatically when the battery controller thinks
it's reached {5,10}percent...

But at three years it's probably time for a new battery.

 

Yes, yes.... you are all right/correct. It may be time for a new
battery. All I was trying to emphasize was, if you can get another 6
months to a years use out of that battery then great. You have some
time to shop around and get a new battery. No rush.

If that fails then a new battery is needed right away.

Just one of those things to try before giving up.....

Regards
Battery Wizard
http://www.ComputerBatteries.co.uk