Battery Swelling

Thanks EJN,

Just curious, and I understand you might not know, but why would some systems / components be applicable and others not? Clearly it's not a battery that has reached end of life and is, instead, defective. 

fwiw, the chassis is fine, will not need any parts.

Thanks.

Thanks, the battery is a Simplo. I can understand batteries swelling to a degree at EOL, but this is one fat battery. To be honest, I have never noticed a degradation in performance or battery life. It just popped up over the course of a week. Oh well, I'll see what dell says and if not i'll be off to get a battery.

The only systems Dell extended the warranty on were the XPS 9550 and Precision 5510 -- not the 3510 model, and even then it was only for some systems with Simplo batteries - not the ones shipped with LG batteries.

You can try calling Dell to see what they say - but remember, these batteries will swell at end of life, and a 3510 system maybe near end of life for the battery (18-24 months is about what you get out of a lithium battery).

Get rid of the battery ASAP - most municipalities will recycle lithium ion batteries.

This is not one of the systems that Dell extended the battery warranty for -- you'll need to buy a replacement battery and if necessary the chassis parts, assuming the battery was left in the system long enough to do damage.

Dell Spare Parts:1-800-357-3355

or parts-people.com should be able to help.

I have a similar issue with an XPS 14 L421x, it pushed the back cover and raised the 
track pad. Apperantely it also caused several keys (G, H, etc) not to work, now removed and on AC 
power instead everything went back to normal.

Can you please share the link to the list you mentioned? I want to see if mine is on the list.

Thank you for the explanation, it makes sense, I have seen this on older phone batteries. All the other laptop batteries I had were encased so either didn't show or just died before it happened.

So now I need to find a good replacement at a reasonable price.

At six plus years old -- no way will Dell cover the battery.

Get it out of the system before it destroys the case, keyboard or mainboard - that'll turn a $100 battery into a total system loss.

Older notebooks -- and even some current ones -- used cylindrical cells encased in steel.  These are also used in the battery packs of electric vehicles (such as most Teslas up to the Model 3).   They have vents but don't swell.

Just about any system with a non-encased prismatic cell will eventually swell at end of life -- it happens to cell phones, slim/light notebooks, tablets, etc.  Apple was the first to use these batteries and you'll find the swelling complaints on Apple systems go back the furthest as a result.

Lithium ion or polymer cells are designed around a 300-500 charge cycle or about two years - whichever comes first.  And just like flashlight batteries will eventually leak at end of life, these cells will swell at life end.

Thanks, battery is already removed and everything is back to normal.

Funny thing is that some of the issues such as keyboard malfunctions started almost 2 years before I could see anything wrong with the battery so I just attributed it to a keyboard issue.

Is it normal for laptop batteries to swell so much? it never happened on any of the other laptop I've had.