Flashing lights on a Dell laptop battery

[W1GUH]

There's a button on the battery that you can press to find the state of the charge. There five lights, and each one is about 20% of the power, so all lights on is 100% charged.

Last night, the lights were trying to tell me something. When I pushed the button, three lights, the two outer lights, and the middle flashed (I think) 4 times.

Does the mean what I think it means, that the battery's kaput? (kaput: adj. no good anymore)

Anyone know a good aftermarket source of laptop batteries?

[KL2BX]

not sure what it means but I have purchased many batteries from www.laptopsforless.com

[kf6rdn]

Are you sure it wasnt just dirty switch contacts?

The best test of course is to charge it & see how long it lasts in the system.

[AB1FV]

The battery might be shorted.

[WD8OQX]

I wouldn't hold much faith in those indecators - I have yet to find one that really works. Most do as you discribe & it appears to be the way the switch makes contact.

[AB8RU]

If you can get a battery tester to see what its doing under load , a DVM or VOM will indicate the amount of voltage is on the cell.

BTW I have been reading lately about aftermarket batteries in case design structure as to not isolating the cells which may cause a fire.

another resource for selling cheap batteries.

unless you are Bevis and Buzzhead thinking fire is kewl.

maybe the fire alarm will go off and maybe the sprinkler system if the flames gets going.

[ka5piu]

Hello.

Almost all modern laptop batteries have a safety circuit.
This is a one-time fail type of thing, so testing with a VOM has to be done carefully.
And, yes, the little light-up testers on the battery are all but useless.
Ignore it and use the battery monitor on the laptop.