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August 8th, 2017 22:00

Inspiron 17R 7720 "Your Battery is Temporarily Disabled", Battery LED Flashing Orange

One of my Inspiron 17R 7720 SE laptops (I have three) hadn't been used for a while so I plugged in a charger to charge up the battery. The computer was turned off, not being used at the time. A while later I noticed the battery status LED on the front of the computer case was flashing 4 orange flashes, then white, then repeat.

When I started the computer I got a start-up message "Your battery is temporarily disabled. Please turn off the unit and try again when the unit is back to operational temperature".

Well the unit WAS at "operational temperature" since it was a cold start. When I run the F2 Setup, under battery health I get the same message. 

I tried using a 2nd battery, same error, and a 2nd AC adapter with the second battery, still same error. The computer operates normally off the AC adapter, shows the battery at 100% charged, but shuts off immediately when the AC adapter is disconnected. 

What is the problem and how do I re-enable my battery?

1 Rookie

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87.5K Posts

August 9th, 2017 04:00

Unless there's some other issue - such as that the AC adapters are non-Dell or not recognized - the flashing LEDs indicate that one or more of the battery cells is bad -- in other words, the battery (or batteries) are dead.

38 Posts

August 9th, 2017 10:00

I don't think it is a bad battery or AC adapter. I tried a different battery and a different AC adapter with the problem computer and still had the problem. The battery and AC adapter from he problem computer were used with one of my other Inspirons and worked fine on the other computer.

1 Rookie

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87.5K Posts

August 9th, 2017 14:00

The flashing LEDs indicate cell failure in the battery - so it IS a battery issue.  It may also be an adapter issue (check the system setup to see if the adapter(s)  is/are correctly recognized -- if they show unknown, you have a problem with the adapter, jack or mainboard  -- in addition to the battery issue).

38 Posts

August 12th, 2017 22:00

The orange flashing batteries LEDs USUALLY are indicative of a battery failure - but I don't think so in this case. I tested the "bad" battery from the problem computer as well as the "good" battery in one of my good computers in the good computer. The F2 startup test reported both batteries performing normally, the F12 diagnostic test reported both batteries had good health. Repeated the tests with both batteries in the problem computer, both batteries were reported disabled. Also tested with both AC adapters, same results. Both batteries performing normally and in good health in one computer, both batteries fail in the problem computer, I don't see a battery problem.

I also tried swapping a hard drive from one of my other computers into the problem computer just to rule out a software issue (all three computers have identical hard drives and software), no change. Reflashed the BIOS, I had upgraded to A17, reflashed with A17, no change. Reflashed again with A16 BIOS, still no change.

So changing the battery, AC adapter, hard drive and reflashing the BIOS all failed to solve my problem. That seems to leave just the MOBO. The only other clue is where the error message says "try again when the unit is back to operational temperature". Well the computer was turned off when the problem started, so it was at room temperature when the failure occurred. Maybe a component failure on the MOBO? If so I'm screwed. I do have oscilloscopes and some electronics test gear but no logic analyzer and no clue where to look anyhow.

The only thing I can think of to do yet is to remove the battery and coin cell BIOS back up battery to re-initialize the computer.

4 Operator

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6.4K Posts

August 13th, 2017 10:00

Or something similar to as the image below:

4 Operator

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6.4K Posts

August 13th, 2017 10:00

:emotion-2:

I'm assuming windows 7 is on the system:

At the bottom of the taskbar, right click the battery icon, hopefully you would see a battery app such as the one pictured below:

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