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February 6th, 2025 16:32
Multiple Models - Battery instantly losing all charge
Hello, I work as IT for an organization that owns several models of refurbished DELL computers, including the following:
- Latitude 5480 / 5580;
- Latitude 5490 / 5590;
- Latitude 5400 / 5500;
- And some others.
We have been encountering a common problem with our batteries (the majority of them are official DELL batteries, not third-party), where despite them showing "Excellent Health" in the battery information screen on the BIOS, while using them their charge quickly go from ~90% to ~5% and rapidly descending afterwards.
After doing some research, we've found similar posts mentioning the possibility of battery not being properly synchronized with drivers; our tests with the proposed solutions haven't been conclusive however and the issue has had us stumped.
I am asking for assistance as we would rather avoid replacing all the batteries if they can be fixed. Is there anything that we can do?
Thank you.
ejn63
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February 6th, 2025 16:34
On at least one of them, run a battery report -- open a command prompt with admin privilege and type
powercfg /batteryreport
What are the current and design capacities of the battery?
The battery health figure doesn't always include the charge capacity - which is what you need to look at.
All of these systems are advanced in years and if they're on their original batteries, the batteries are likely at the end of their lives and all of them are in need of replacement.
StellarJayPB
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February 6th, 2025 17:48
@ejn63 I re-checked a few, some were marking status Excellent in BIOS; some lower. Those marked as Excellent all had >= 70% charge capacity compared to design capacity. Shouldn't this be enough charge for the laptop to last for a long enough period?
Thank you for your time.
ejn63
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February 6th, 2025 17:56
Not necessarily -- there are multiple cells in the battery and if it's a 3- or 4-cell battery with one weak cell, the others cannot compensate.
The age of the systems mean it's time for replacement batteries (or replacement systems).
StellarJayPB
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February 6th, 2025 19:52
That is unfortunate, but I thank you kindly for your input. We will still continue to try to find cost-effective alternatives, though the help is appreciated.
Thank you very much.
StellarJayPB
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February 11th, 2025 14:45
Update:
After testing more laptops, I have found more laptops with over 80% maximum capacity. Different forum posts give various answers about the BIOS version and battery management drivers;
I am currently in the process of gathering more computers with excellent health batteries so that a solution can be found. I would appreciate to hear inputs from other users that have had similar issues.
Attached to this post is a screenshot of one of the battery reports. EDIT: Removed sensitive information.
(edited)