[Ziggybee]

HI all, I've had my Dell for almost 3 yrs no probs. But yesterday it went off on me 3 times, finally on the last time it said 'Low Battery"...well, I never use the battery, I am always plugged into AC. I switched surge protectors but that didn't help, all cords in good condition. Any ideas? PS It's working fine now, except the battery won't recharge and the light keeps flashing red.

[rrfranczak3]

Just an FYI, that's probably what killed your battery is keeping it on AC constantly, I run mine on battery until it gets down to about 40% then I charge it, and mine is 2 1/2yrs old now and I still get 100% charge and about 6hrs - 6 1/2hrs on battery depending what I am doing......maybe keep that in mind for your next battery....

PS. Welcome to the forum....

[fdalbor]

Back in May of 2009 there was a lively debate (on the forum) about the good or bad of keeping your 1010 on the power cord all the time. Some felt you would be running on power and not harming the battery and some felt just the opposite, that you would be charging the battery all the time and would harm it.

Trouble is no one could come up with proof one way or the other. It does sound like your battery is kaput for one reason or another. I guest it does not matter if it still runs fine off the charger and you don't use the battery anyway. If you do want to replace it WalMart at one time sold the Dell replacement battery for about half what you would pay Dell for it. You had to order it thru the WalMart online store; but it may still be available if you are interested. Its the six cell 56W battery.

I got one about a year ago to supplement the 3 cell my 1010 came with. Both of mine still charge fine; but I cannot honestly say running the unit on charge will damage it. I do run both of mine in the unit and usually charge them when they get down to about 15% charge. But I also run my 1010 off the charger quite a bit with either of the batteries in it because I run it in desktop mode all the time to get max speed out of the little beast. RRfranczak3 may be right; or maybe as Forest Gumps mom said it's just her time to go. Good luck, fdalbor

[nutstreak]

I don't thing that keeping the phone on ac all the time can kill the battery because any battery has an internal controller that stops the current when it's fully charged. I think you should try to flash your OS or reset settings.

[Swamp Donkey]

Are they still producing new batteries for these? I see them on ebay, and on the dell site (expensive), but wonder how old the manufacture date is. My batteries seen a lot of charges on my mini 10 and I don't know how much longer it will last.

I've read that buying new batteries that were manufactured years ago, have already lost a lot of their life.

[largeelvis]

Check out a shareware program called BatteryCare

It might not be able to fix your battery, but in my case it gave a percentage of how much it had deteriorated from maximum charge. Once you start using it, it also counts the charge cycles and lets you know when you should let it completely run down (every 30 cycles). It also gives you a better battery meter than the standard one.

[DeathGrind]

i only get about 1hour and 30 minutes out of mine. Oh well what can i expect, i just got it for $50.

[rrfranczak3]

Originally Posted by DeathGrind

i only get about 1hour and 30 minutes out of mine. Oh well what can i expect, i just got it for $50.

thats ok, from the sounds of it you must have the 3cell and not the optional 6cell, if it is the 6cell and thats all you get, it needs replacing, for the 3cell its ok for the age but still not great

[gdsmit1]

My 6 cell battery is dying. I fully charge the battery and when I get into Linux, it pops up a warning that it only has 49% charge. The battery monitor thing says 100%. When I get down to about 50% according to the battery monitor, the Mini shuts down. It appears than 3 of the cells have failed.

I'll be shopping for a new battery.