Inspiron 4000 battery is absolutely horrible

Question

Has anyone else with a Inspiron 4000 experienced problems with the battery?  This battery that I have has never been good, but now it loses its charge within five minutes of being unhooked from the power source.  It is not really a 'laptop' anymore, since I always have to have it plugged in to work on it.  It discharges fast, almost instantaneously.  When I first got this laptop in Oct. 01, I remember that it seemed to need charged a lot, but it was not as bad as it was now.  Does Dell put really cheap batteries in their laptops?   How long are batteries supposed to last, and is it unusual to replace a notebook battery after 3 years?  What is wrong with my battery?

JessBacon · Answer

My Inspiron 4000 batteries are also horrible. One died within a year of purchasing my computer (Sept 2001), and the other discharges within about 5 minutes of unplugging the power source. I am thinking that the problem may be deeper than cheap batteries however. In my 3 years of owning this machine, Dell has replaced 3 AC Adapters--including one last week. I think the problem is with the computer itself shorting out the batteries after a time (after all, 5 dead or dying batteries in 3 years is pretty bad), and instead of dealing with that issue, they just keep fixing the symptom, not the root cause. Any suggestions or ideas out there?

BoulderGuy · Answer

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Ditto for the lame power of the battery. I also purchased my system in OCT 01 and it's honestly been sitting in the closet almost totally useless.

I was told by tech support that the issue isn't the batteries it's the motherboard. It took me almost 2 months of really poor customer service & tech support via the old tech support online system that my motherboard needed to be replaced at the tune of 800.00 or 900.00 bucks not 1 week after the 1yr system warrenty expired. After the amount of time it took to get that answer and to tell me after it expired made me a little angry. So I went out and got a gateway laptop that has never given me any problems.

I am giving this dell one more shot so I hope someone has a little jewel of wisdom or secert for us!

chaistt · Answer

Yeah i agree too Dell Batteries are terrible. However try not to deep drain them (to the point were the computer just cuts off) this tends to damage them. I'm soon to give up and buy an IBM.

ben23 · Answer

Well I think we established that Inspiron batteries blow.  It is interesting that no Dell person has responded to any of our posts.  Maybe he knows that what we are saying is true and that he can't counter any of our claims????

chaistt · Answer

Unfortually the moderators don't tend to answer much on the Tech boards mostly on the Customer care boards.

ben23 · Answer

Should I get one of these? http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/ProductDetail.aspx?sku=312-0115&c=us&l=en&cs=19&ManufactSelection=Inspiron&ModelSelection=107511

Maybe if I get this than I won't have to actually have my laptop plugged in constantly. Did anyone buy this battery after their first one went bad?

chaistt · Answer

I would buy a battery else where as Dell are much more expensive. However that is the correct battery to buy. It should work for the following: 3700/3800/4000/4100/8000/8100 and maybe some others.

ben23 · Answer

on www.laptopparts.com they have a bunch of Dell products.  I found a Lithium-Ion battery for $91.  Are these worth the extra money, or should I just buy another regular one for about 30 bucks less?  What makes the Lithium-ion batteries more expensive?

chaistt · Answer

All current Dell batteries (apart from one in the 1000) are Li-ion so the one u must be getting is a high capacity model compared to the lower capacity $30 less model. Likely to be the 4460mah for $91 and the 3800mah for $30 less.

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