M1330 battery light flashing red

If the like on the adapter is on then one has to go with the battery.  I would get a new one

I also have an XPS M1330. It has been working well for years until the other day. I always (95%) use mine plugged into power. I turned it on and the battery light started flashing sequences. Blue - flash once and Red - flash five times. I was unsure of reasons and did some fault finding.

When I used the laptop with "battery only" it continued to flash in the sequence given above. When I removed the battery and used it with "power only", it didn't flash at all. I presumed it was a battery problem but didn't really want to replace it with a new one so decided to try some charge discharge to see whether something had lost it's place.

After some searching on the internet, I came across a post that gave me instructions to try. They worked although there may still be a time in the future that I need to replace the battery. Below are the steps:

1. Remove the power adapter and run the laptop until the battery reads "empty". I needed to restart once or twice as the laptop turned itself off with 3% of power remaining. I turned it back on and let it run to 0% and it switched itself off.

2. I left the laptop off and then removed the battery and let them sit apart for 10 mins (still off).

3. I then replaced the battery and recharged it. The blue charge light stayed on unitl 100% and then no lights. WooHoo, the problem resolved !

4. I then went through the discharge/recharge cycle again as was suggested and there was no change. It still all works fine.

I hope this helps any others.

Well I thought I had solved the problem. But alas, the red light started flashing again.

I attempted to cycle the battery as described above 5 times but to no avail. I have now ordered another battery and when it arrives and I install it, I will update the progress.

Yep, that was the problem. I purchased another battery and installed it. All works great now.

I've stored the old battery as it still charges and holds charge. You never know when things come in handy.

I am having the same problems with my 1300. I figured it was the battery, since it was 3 years old. I purchased a new battery but the battery light is still flashing red. It was green when I first installed the new battery but after about 10 minutes it started flashing red again. Any ideas?

Verify that the battery is a genuine Dell battery - not a third party one.

If it is, remove the battery, unplug the system, hold the power button for 30 seconds.  Then install the battery and see if it will charge.

OK, I had the same problem, tried to no avail all the solutions I could find on the net, clean contacts, charger (had 3), disable/delete ACPI driver, etc. nothing worked.

It appears it charged for about 10s on each plugin.  That leads me to think its a software issue rather than a hardware issue.  I put a PLC with a simple on/off timer for the computer power supply as a test.  After about 500 cycles (10s on -> 5s off), the battery charged to >75%, then it would charge normally so I paused the PLC and it charged to 100%.  I'm going to do some more test, like run the battery down and try again.  I'll let you know how it works.