Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

[Andreasbest]

Hello!
I have 2x Dell Latitude 5570, both came without batteries and cables, so i bought 2x cables (from China) and decide to use them with 2 batteries i already own from other laptops, one genuine Dell and one OEM (Green Cell).
In my surprise i noticed that both laptops indicating both batteries as "No Genuine Dell Battery", i'm out of ideas as i have never faced similar problem before.
Is there any chance the chinese cables to cause the problem?
How can i test them?

Thank you in advance!

Schematic: https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...9&d=1623062271

[mon2]

Re: Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

Batteries these days are 'smart batteries'. These slave devices communicate with the SMBUS (I2C) bus master (host CPU) to relay blocks of information including the # of charges; capacity; serial #, etc. and unique vendor IDs.

Unless these details are spoofed, the target 3rd party battery will appear to be a fake.

The communication lines are the:

PBAT_SMBDAT
PBAT_SMBCLK

Using an I2C bus analyzer, it is possible to snoop on the traffic between the battery & the host.

It will be easier to just find a compatible battery that will offer a BMS (battery management system) that will then spoof the required data. No idea on the quality of the battery chemistry but at least the above alarm message will be resolved.

[Andreasbest]

Re: Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

Batteries these days are 'smart batteries'. These slave devices communicate with the SMBUS (I2C) bus master (host CPU) to relay blocks of information including the # of charges; capacity; serial #, etc. and unique vendor IDs.

Unless these details are spoofed, the target 3rd party battery will appear to be a fake.

The communication lines are the:

PBAT_SMBDAT
PBAT_SMBCLK

Using an I2C bus analyzer, it is possible to snoop on the traffic between the battery & the host.

It will be easier to just find a compatible battery that will offer a BMS (battery management system) that will then spoof the required data. No idea on the quality of the battery chemistry but at least the above alarm message will be resolved.

The problem in this case is that i own a Genuine Dell battery that is recognized as genuine in other Dell laptops but is displayed as Non genuine only on both 5570.
That's why i thought about the chinese cable.
What do you think?

[mon2]

Re: Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

What are the details of this Chinese cable ?

Can you post a quality picture or maybe a pinout diagram ?

Also, on the laptops that are NOT working with this battery & cable harness, use the meter in DC volts mode (20V is ok) and confirm the voltage readings on the SMBUS pair of pins used for the battery interconnect.

The SMBUS cannot be stuck for this all to work. You should see ~+3v3 on each SMBUS pin - please confirm this very important detail.

Then attach the battery & cable harness - measure the voltage on the SMBUS lines again. They should remain @ ~3v3 which denotes open-drain pull-up resistors are doing their job.

[Andreasbest]

Re: Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

It's identical to genuine cable but it's dirty cheap.
Quality visually also appears to be the same as the genuine so i think it's better to confirm it's working with some measurements.
SMBUS is on PL2 & PL3?

[mon2]

Re: Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

See attached.

Measure and post the voltage reading for each of these lines (WITHOUT the battery & cable).

Then repeat the voltage measurements WITH the battery & cable.

[Andreasbest]

Re: Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

Trying to locate this PRP1...

[Andreasbest]

Re: Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

MB is LA-C641P but no schematic for this, 841P is very similar but still can't found PRP1

[Andreasbest]

Re: Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

Ok found it.
Without battery and cable but with charger i get 3.3v on both pins
With battery and cable without charger both pins @ 0v
Laptop switched off in both cases.

[mon2]

Re: Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

What is the voltage reading WITH battery & cable AND with adapter for these pins ?

[Andreasbest]

Re: Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

0v @ pin1
3.3v @ pin2

[mon2]

Re: Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

Are these the voltages on the resistor network @ PRP1 ?

List the voltages on PRP1,

pin 1
pin 2
pin 3

with the battery & adapter connected.

Then turn ON the laptop - what are the voltage readings when the board is ON ?

[Andreasbest]

Re: Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

With laptop turned off and on with battery & cable and adapter i get the same readings.
pin1 0v
pin2 3.3v
pin3 3.3v

[Andreasbest]

Re: Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

I tried with a cable from E5450 (it's exactly the same but longer) and i still get the "Not Dell battery" error in 5570.
While with the same cable and battery i get "Genuine Dell battery" on E5450.
So apparently the cables are fine and i have 2 motherboards with the exact same fault!
Now what are the odds for it to happen?

[mon2]

Re: Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

If I am following the logic correctly, the non-working 5570 is requiring a different set of parameters from the battery.

The 5450 works since that logic board is ok with the battery pack configuration data that is sent over the SMBUS (I2C) lines.

The voltages on the SMBUS (I2C) lines is ok and they are not being pulled down.

Try again with a compatible battery for this laptop and it should work.

https://www.dell.com/community/Latit...y/td-p/7536573

[Andreasbest]

Re: Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

But i try with a genuine Dell battery (not from 5570 but from 5450, they look identical) as well and i get the same results.
I don't think it's a battery issue.

[mon2]

Re: Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

They may look identical but the packets being sent out from the battery most likely have different values and the host logic board is then rejecting the battery.

What will help here is to monitor the SMBUS interface pins using an external tool - in the past few days, one of the techs used an Arduino to extract out the data from the battery. That will be a worthwhile diagnostic to do here.

Do you have any 'official' battery for this logic board ? Even if dead - does this message go away if using the 'official' battery ?

The key point here is that the SMBUS packets of data are not matching what the logic board is expecting. This could be the fault of the 5450 battery BMS board OR could be a fault of the communication lines used to transfer these pieces of data (SDA & CLK lines).

If you are able to capture the data flying over the SDA & CLK lines then it is down to the battery being not compatible.

This is a very interesting project and in theory, any small piece of logic could 'emulate' the appearance of a valid battery. Will check around if others have built up such an emulator. That is, something like an arduino or small fpga could spit out the same packets of data that is expected by the host logic board. At the very least, then we will know if this calms down the raised error message.

[Andreasbest]

Re: Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

Ok, meanwhile i'll call Dell tomorrow morning to confirm the p/n of 5450 and 5570 batteries.
If p/n is the same then it's the same battery, if the p/n is different then i'm super idiot for not thinking it earlier.

[mon2]

Re: Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

Also review this similar thread:

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showth...=smbus+battery

What are the markings on the battery that is reporting this quirk ?

[Andreasbest]

Re: Dell Latitude 5570 indicates "No Genuine Dell battery"

Yes just saw it, Vesko is correct.
The part number i need is 6MT4T (62Wh) or WJ5R2 (84Wh)
So GreenCell is wrong mentioning the battery is the same for all these models -> https://greencell.global/lt/standard...70-e5550-e5570
I must alert SMDFlea to stick that.
Thank you very much mate, really appreciate your help, i was completely blind.