replacement battery suggestions

[ratdude747]

my dell latidude d400 is needing a new battery. i also might be getting to pick one for christmas.

the rayovac ones at batteries plus seem to be the cheapest good ones at $97 (i paid $93 for the laptop, lol).

my questions:

1. Buy.com has them for $30 (link). does it look good or is it an epic fail waiting to happen?

2. does anybody know of anywhere else with a good price on decent batteries? i need to money last since I also need to upgrade the ram in it.

3. is getting a new battery justified for this thing? it has a pentium m donthan 1.6ghz and for the 5 months i have had it it has ran pretty well. better than my netbook with a dead screen...

[yyonline]

Re: replacement battery suggestions

I personally don't trust generic batteries. You remember how the generic power adapter looked, right? I'd expect the generic battery is similar. Given that even the genuine batteries have been known to self combust, I'd stay far, far away from the generics.

What I'd do...

First step - see if the battery has been recalled:
http://www.dellbatteryprogram.com/
If it does, you get a free replacement.

Failing that, I'd go for a new genuine battery on ebay:
http://shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=9T1....c0.m270.l1313

Granted...Li Ion deteriorate from manufacture...but...generally speaking, the conditions in storage are much milder than the conditions being installed in a hot laptop. I've had very good luck buying *new* genuine Dell batteries on eBay. My personal worst case battery had 88% capacity remaining according to HWMonitor. Even ordering direct from Dell is not a guarantee you'd get a "fresh" battery, especially on an older model like that. That's if they even carry them any longer.

Buying a used battery is another option. Many don't realize that Dell batties have a built-in health gauge:

To check the battery health, press and hold the status button on the battery charge gauge for at least 3 seconds. If no lights appear, the battery is in good condition and approximately more than 80 percent of its original charge capacity remains. Each light represents incremental degradation. If five lights appear, approximately less than 60 percent of the charge capacity remains, and you should consider replacing the battery.

In other words, press it once - it tells you the charge. Press and hold it, and the lights flash to tell you battery health. The more flashing lights, the worse condition the battery is in. I've found that in general eBay sellers are more than happy to perform this procedure unless they're selling a lot of them or something.

[ratdude747]

Re: replacement battery suggestions

i know about the recall, my battery is a sanyo, not sony, so no dice.

already know about the wear gauge... i get all 5 lights...

i doubt anything genuine is any good... it is a 2005 model iirc. i doubt they still support it... they want to sell laptops not batteries.

i want a new battery... since i will be in college next year, i want a good battery not another crappy used one.

and NOS is not new when it is a battery... 3 year warranty my ass. newer batteries are better technology and have not sit and lost their capacity. for all i know it spent its life sitting in a hot warehouse...

besides, dell puts a chip that recalibrate the battery based on age... so mine will do 0% for 15 minutes. planned obsolescence. idk if the 3rd party ones have that bug...

unless it was $15, i would steer clear of the NOS.

edit- screw all of what i just said. batteries plus only has them in the 34w/h 6 cell config... my oild one is a 42 w/h 8 cell model. $107?

laptops are razors and batteries are the blades...

[yyonline]

Re: replacement battery suggestions

Well, given that is is an older model, and likely not too many left in good working order, a "new" battery from anywhere is just as likely to have been sitting around in a warehouse for awhile.

My mom's laptop is a D800. I've ordered 3 new old stock batteries from eBay for that, and they all had decent capacity - 88%, 95%, and 110% (yeah...110%...newer revision was 80Wh instead of 72.) All 3 are still performing well to this day...all were 2004-2005 manufacturing dates and ordered in 2009 sometime. So, yeah, it's a bit of a gamble, but my luck has been decent.

[ratdude747]

Re: replacement battery suggestions

ok... it may be the best route. do a little math... 42 w/h- 10% (ageing)= 37.8 w/h. better than the 34 w/h claimed by the new rayovac.

i will likely go with the $27 one with the 3 year warranty... better deal. i may save up and buy another if the first one is any good.

[yyonline]

Re: replacement battery suggestions

The Dell Diagnostics utility can give you the manufacture date for a genuine Dell battery:

http://support.dell.com/support/down...eckFormat=true

Run the EXE on any PC, doesn't need to be a Dell. It will give you the option to create a bootable ISO image that you can burn. Then boot your Dell from that CD and run the battery test, which will dump the battery info to the output. I don't think the Dell Diagnostics utility will tell you the wear level, however.

For battery health, HWMonitor will tell you the "wear level" of the battery, which is the percent difference between the designed max charge and current max charge levels. It may be necessary to go through a few charge cycles before that info is re-calibrated.

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

I've had some issues with HWMonitor 1.17 not reading all the info from some Dell laptops. If that's the case, download 1.16 which is more reliable with Dell laptops in my experience.

[ratdude747]

Re: replacement battery suggestions

bought it... if it is good than i might buy another...

[ratdude747]

Re: replacement battery suggestions

came in the mail today, the ups dude forgot to knock so i just an hour ago found the box at the door.

charge/discharge cycle #1 is going right now.

[mockingbird]

Re: replacement battery suggestions

Can you link to the vendor you use so we can know based on your results if he is reliable?

[ratdude747]

Re: replacement battery suggestions

it was this item:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-Latitude-D4...#ht_3784wt_951

seller:

http://myworld.ebay.com/laptopenterprise/

100% positive rating...

[yyonline]

Re: replacement battery suggestions

Ratdude - I'm curious if there are any updates? I just got a D400 in the shop that yesterday that needs some work, and the thing dies as soon as the power cord is unplugged. Let me know if your battery was decent? If it is, I may grab one from the same seller.

[ratdude747]

Re: replacement battery suggestions

so far so good. no wear lights... the power stats in fedora claim it has 99% capacity.

i may buy a second...

[ratdude747]

Re: replacement battery suggestions

still going strong... thanks for the suggestion yyonline... ironic how you also made the suggestion that found the laptop in the first place (and happened to have to correct power brick)... you seem to be on a hot streak...

[ratdude747]

Re: replacement battery suggestions

well, look at this: according to hwmonitor, i only have 0% wear:



sounds like this guy has stored them well...

[PCBONEZ]

Re: replacement battery suggestions

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...3&postcount=36

[ratdude747]

Re: replacement battery suggestions

spite posting?

[PCBONEZ]

Re: replacement battery suggestions

No. - I always try to warn others about bad or misleading info.

You could call it a 'misconception intervention' if you wish.
.

[yyonline]

Re: replacement battery suggestions

Also curious if you ran the Dell Diagnostics to get a manufacture date on the battery? Maybe it's not as old as we think?

I also see some brand new Dell batteries with "negative" wear. In other words, the capacity is 105% or so of the designed capacity. I wonder if that may be deliberate to compensate for some of the time many batteries spend in storage waiting to ship. Or perhaps the sensors aren't very accurate.

What PCBONEZ is saying is certainly a possibility...but given that 95% of the PC using population is ignorant that this info even exists, I'd be surprised if sellers are modifying it...but it's certainly possible.

I'm doubtful that it's a measure of charge cycles, however. Why? I bought a new battery for my D620 from Dell, never opened it, threw it in a drawer, and forgot about it. Once I found it some year and a half later, the battery capacity was down to about 50% after only a few charge cycles.

Now, the ACPI spec does say that the "last full charge capacity" is simply reported by the battery. That has been part of the ACPI spec since 2.0a, which is March 2002. I didn't bother going back further, but it may be in earlier revisions as well.

I see lots of Dell laptops for repair, so I know lots of sources for Dell parts. I know eBay batteries are a risk, but so far, I've had decent luck (knock on wood...) The way I see it, if it works, and it's not unsafe (no forged UL numbers, counterfeit manufacturer decals or anything), then it's a good deal.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: replacement battery suggestions

Once I found it some year and a half later, the battery capacity was down to about 50% after only a few charge cycles.

That's great example of part of what I'm trying to get across.
-
Battery -CAPACITY- is the "Full Charge Capacity" in "mWh" reading in RD's little program.
-
Age will eventually reduce that to zero with no charge cycles [wear] at all.
.

"Wear" implies "use" by definition.
It's a measure of how much it's been -used-, not how much capacity is available.
On a rechargeable battery, degree of use = number of cycles.
.

When you find a dealer that sells good batteries stick with them.
The next guy might not be selling good batteries.

[back in the day]
Brand new batteries for one of the models I handled were running about $250. At some point I saw 3-packs of 'untested NOS' that fit on ebay going for around $75. The particular laptop had a battery restore program that was more advanced than what you see now [it did several cycles and if it passed then a slow charge]. - So I risked a 3-pack of the NOS. Two were good, I 'restored' them and sold them as tested. [because they were.] I was getting $85-$100 each. I did that over and over until the guy I was buying from ran out of batteries after a few months. Roughly 1/3 were bad but I still came out ahead overall particularly as I could sell the rebuilt laptops with tested batteries too.
.

[yyonline]

Re: replacement battery suggestions

It's probably just an issue of bad semantics, but battery "wear level" in that program is simply 1 - (full charge capacity/design capacity) as a percentage. Whether or not "wear level" is a good name for that measure, I don't know. But that's how it comes up with the number.

I'd be more curious to know how the chip in the battery determines the current full charge capacity...