Dell Battery Life

[Le Pacha]

I have got my dell inspiron 8600 for less than 2 years so far and have largely used it on AC power rather than the battery.

Only recently it did come to my attention that the battery now lasts a lot less than an hour, compared to 4 hours when the laptop was new. And today I came home for a 3 day trip during which the laptop was left fully charged and powered off and unplugged at home, that I turned it on and realised that the battery is 0% charged and wouldn't even charged when plugged to the outlet.

Can this be anything faulty other than the battery? The AC adapter? Windows XP and how it manages my battery? Will a reinstall fix things (i doubt it though)? Is this the usual battery lifespan?

I know dell recalled a lot of batteies lately, but regretfully mine wasn't one of them.

[glc]

Sounds like the battery just died.

[Le Pacha]

can that happen in less than 2 years? Is it true that I should have taken tha battery out all the time the laptop was on AC power?

[clroberts]

Originally Posted by Le Pacha I have got my dell inspiron 8600 for less than 2 years so far and have largely used it on AC power rather than the battery. Only recently it did come to my attention that the battery now lasts a lot less than an hour, compared to 4 hours when the laptop was new. And today I came home for a 3 day trip during which the laptop was left fully charged and powered off and unplugged at home, that I turned it on and realised that the battery is 0% charged and wouldn't even charged when plugged to the outlet. Can this be anything faulty other than the battery? The AC adapter? Windows XP and how it manages my battery? Will a reinstall fix things (i doubt it though)? Is this the usual battery lifespan? I know dell recalled a lot of batteies lately, but regretfully mine wasn't one of them.

Hey, Didn't Dell recall a lot of laptops recently because the batteries (Made by Sony) Caught on fire?

[glc]

See if your battery is covered under the recall.

[thefultonhow]

He already said his battery wasn't covered...

Believe it or not, if you leave your computer plugged in all the time with the battery in, that will kill the battery. The battery will discharge a bit due to the heat of the laptop, and then recharge to 100%. This uses up a charge cycle, and batteries can only take so many charge cycles before they really lose capacity.

Also, I had the same problem with the 0% thing with a Sony laptop -- buying a new battery fixed it.