Hi,

I have a Dell Inspiron 3800 running Win2K, out of warrantee. I've switched out several batteries on this machine, charged them fully so that the battery reading in the BIOS and in Windows shows its at a 100% charge and estimates anywhere from a 1 to 2 hour projected battery life. (The LCD meter on the battery itself also shows a full charge.) However, the batteries actually end up lasting only about 15 minutes. I've tried disabling power management, switching the batteries to the second slot, updating the BIOS, etc. No change in the results. What would cause a fully charged battery to drain that quickly? Thank you for your help.

How old are the batteries? The more they're used, the weaker is their ability to hold their charge. So though it reports fully charged, it's not. Batteries are disposable, best thing to do is buy a new one.

You can kinda improve the battery a little by charging it until it reports full, using it until it dies, and repeating. It sometimes helps, but is no comparison to a new battery.

GF

That did it. We have a whole stock of backup batteries but I guess they're all pretty old. I put in a battery that I knew to be newer than those (but not brand new) and it didn't shut down on me. I just didn't think every single one of our spare batteries should be dead. Thanks for your help.