The battery on my Inspiron 6100 is back to only holding a charge for 20 minutes or so. I replaced it with an off-brand battery a couple years ago, after the first one went out. The notebook is about 5 years old at this point, so not worth much hassle.
Is it possible to replace the cells in the battery pack and still have it function, or are the chips in the battery completely horked up? For what it’s worth, when using the AC adapter, the battery light flashes orange 4 or 5 times then goes dark, then flashes 4 or 5 times again.
So can I just order replacement cells? Or do I need to buy a whole new battery pack (which didn’t last as long as I expected)
Li-ion cells do have a finite life, even if unused. I’ve known a couple of fellers who tried to swap out the cells, but the result didn’t work very well. The assembled battery has monitoring circuitry and it’s plausible that it still thinks the new cells are toast.
2-3 years years is about what you get from a notebook battery pack . Battery packs are generally sealed modules with ultrasonically welded plastic so getting into one can be quite a trial without damaging the case irreparably, and then you have to seal it up.
Most battery packs use sub C size rechargeable batteries wired in series and these are not cheap. You also need to know if these are Li-ions, NiMH or Ni-cads. You need to know what kinds the battery pack used as that’s what the electronics in the battery and the charging circuit is set up for. It’s generally best just to get a new battery pack.
Assuming that the circuitry is still good, you’d have to replace the cells with exactly the same type of cells, preferably from the same manufacturer. Replacing them with different cells could actually be dangerous, as lithium ion batteries can go into thermal runaway if they are overcharged. This can result in a rather spectacular failure that will destroy much more than just the batteries (in other words, battery go BOOM! :eek: ).
Much safer and easier to just buy a new battery pack.
Keeping the battery fully charged all of the time will make it wear out a bit faster. Keeping the battery pack hot will also make it wear out faster, and most laptops run pretty hot these days.
Thank you, gentleman. Sounds like new battery pack time. Hopefully I’ll get a better vendor this time. Last time I had to send the battery back 2 times before they finally sent one that would work.