Lap Top battery dying

[AdamZ]

My laptop is a DELL Inspiron 6000 and the Rechargable le Li-ion battery is going. It won't hold much of a charge. Dell sells a replacement for $135.00. I went to a lot of the internet battery dealers and they of course carry everything including DELL but not the Inspiron 6000 they have the 4000, the 5000 the 7000 but not the 6000 Grrrrrr. Any thoughts or am I stuck going to DELL?

 

[ScottM]

Don't search by laptop model search by battery aprt number. The after market places just may not have their db up to date.

Also watch out for the really cheap LiION batts. Those tend to not have the safety materials that are really needed to avoid this: http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2006/06/21/dell-laptop-explodes-at-japanese-conference

The person in the story whose computer it is, is a person I work with. There are also other people in the room that I know that can attest to this being a real event. I did not get my info second hand at all. This happened at a standards meeting in Japan.

 

[mikea]

The SECOND replacement battery in my Macbook Pro is giving me an hour and change of life again. It also goes down so fast it goes dead without a warning. I lost a few minutes of work when it went cold dead after showing me 20 minutes left.

I'm doing a little bit of "battery conditioning" but I gather that only makes the minutes remaining more accurate.

The 2nd one was replaced less than a year ago so I hope I can get another under AppleCare.

I guess they don't like being on power almost all of the time.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

The SECOND replacement battery in my Macbook Pro is giving me an hour and change of life again. It also goes down so fast it goes dead without a warning. I lost a few minutes of work when it went cold dead after showing me 20 minutes left.

I'm doing a little bit of "battery conditioning" but I gather that only makes the minutes remaining more accurate.

The 2nd one was replaced less than a year ago so I hope I can get another under AppleCare.

I guess they don't like being on power almost all of the time.

Mike,

Mine's on power almost all the time too, and when it's on battery I still get over 3 hours. This is the 17" MacBook Pro I bought in June of 06, which IIRC was shortly after you got yours.

Do you at least run it down once a month or so?

 

[kgruber]

http://tinyurl.com/5w2g9w

 

[mikea]

Mike,

Mine's on power almost all the time too, and when it's on battery I still get over 3 hours. This is the 17" MacBook Pro I bought in June of 06, which IIRC was shortly after you got yours.

Do you at least run it down once a month or so?

No. I guess I need to set a reminder to fully discharge the battery once a month.

The Time Capsule just died. Can't mount the disk in Finder. It was working fine. I put my whole ITunes library on it. I was watching video content on it when it just went away. (I had been fighting with Front Row to work on my HDTV. Don't get me started.) Even the Ethernet ports on it don't work, although the MBP could still find it.

It seems really warm. I'll let it cool off.

I wonder if I can open 2 tickets on one call to Applecare.

 

[gprellwitz]

This is one of the major problems with devices that don't allow you to replace the rechargeable battery yourself. Things like the Apple MacBook Air, my Creative Zen, and others. You need to ship them back to the manufacturer to get the battery replaced!

 

[ScottM]

This is one of the major problems with devices that don't allow you to replace the rechargeable battery yourself. Things like the Apple MacBook Air, my Creative Zen, and others. You need to ship them back to the manufacturer to get the battery replaced!

Not really. You just have to buy the kit from an after market source with the instruction to replace the battery. I have replaced iPod batteries. It is not that hard.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

This is one of the major problems with devices that don't allow you to replace the rechargeable battery yourself. Things like the Apple MacBook Air, my Creative Zen, and others. You need to ship them back to the manufacturer to get the battery replaced!

This is why I like devices that use AA or AAA batteries- choice of alkaline or rechargable NiMH. Battery won't take a charge- just get a replacement. If you forget spare batteries or charger- almost any dollar/grocery/hardware/bigbox store will get you going again. Not in the USA? Just go to Walmart or the bazaar and you're up & running.

 

[mikea]

This is why I like devices that use AA or AAA batteries- choice of alkaline or rechargeable NiMH. Battery won't take a charge- just get a replacement. If you forget spare batteries or charger- almost any dollar/grocery/hardware/bigbox store will get you going again. Not in the USA? Just go to Walmart or the bazaar and you're up & running.

Ditto. I bought a AA battery pack for my Yeasu handheld aviation radio. I don't even know where rechargeable battery it came with is at. It was always dead when I checked. The key advantage of alkalines is they have a long shelf life. I can try teh radio after a year and it works fine. That's a better choice for an emergency device.

The problem is that for some things I got because they use AAs like my Canon camera, the alkalines are always dead. They last for maybe an hour of use.

 

[Ghery]

Ditto. I bought a AA battery pack for my Yeasu handheld aviation radio. I don't even know where rechargeable battery it came with is at. It was always dead when I checked. The key advantage of alkalines is they have a long shelf life. I can try teh radio after a year and it works fine. That's a better choice for an emergency device.

The problem is that for some things I got because they use AAs like my Canon camera, the alkalines are always dead. They last for maybe an hour of use.

That was one of the features that attracted me to the Sporty's handheld. AA batteries are the default for it. I got a spare pack, so I can swap them out quickly. Lithium-Ion is fine for my amateur radio handheld, it gets dropped in the charger at night, but the aviation handheld just sits in my flight bag. Alkaline batteries are the only thing that makes sense with that use model.

 

[JohnR]

I just ordered a new laptop battery. Half expecting to find the old one full of rechargeable AAs, I opened it up. Here it is, with a Duracell AA for scale. It also has a printed circuit board.

 

[mikea]

I just ordered a new laptop battery. Half expecting to find the old one full of rechargeable AAs, I opened it up. Here it is, with a Duracell AA for scale. It also has a printed circuit board.

Yep. Lithium-Ion cells. The Tesla sportscar has 6808 of those.

 

[JohnR]

Wow, then based on the price of my new battery, the Tesla battery should cost $90,733.

 

[qbynewbie]

Adam,

Sometimes -- emphasis on sometimes -- the following will help if you get your laptop battery to a point where it won't hold much of a charge anymore.

First, unplug the computer and let the battery run until dead and computer shuts off. Then plug it in and charge it long enough to fully charge it. Then repeat the process. Keep track of how long it runs each time before shutting off. You may see that each cycle starts to get longer. If so, keep repeating the process until you get to someplace reasonable.

It often doesn't work but it sometimes does and it can really be fairly miraculous in restoring a lot of function to a battery.

 

[AdamZ]

Thanks Brian, I'll try that. I did buy a new one , well actually not a new one it is obviously used cause it is not much better than the old one.