[KidDynamike]

I have a pretty old Dell Latitude CPi A Series laptop that I use on the road and stuff. It's been working fine for the last 4 months that I've been using it. However, as of yesterday I'm having trouble with the batteries. I have 2 batteries that I use in the 2 front ports. I hit the little tester buttons on the sides of them and one had all 5 bars light up and the other had only 1. As long as it is plugged in it runs fine but as soon as I take the plug out it shuts off. I left it plugged in for a while hoping it would charge and it didn't. I went into power options and this is what I found:

#1 will not read anything other than "Not Present" and #2 switches between "not present" and how it looks in the picture. It never goes above 0% though. I need help diagnosing and solving this problem!

[KidDynamike]

any ideas? i really need to get this back in working order!

[steven1350]

batteries get old and eventully die. To hold maximum charge, they should be replaced every few years.

[KidDynamike]

this could be the case. it just seems like they crapped out literally overnight, so i'm wondering if there is a connection issue somewhere.

[steven1350]

its possible that something inside of it suddenly failed. I have a battery on an old Dell Latitude C600, and at one point, the battery indicator starting flashing a pattern. I looked it up, and it was telling me that one of the cells had failed.

[KidDynamike]

One thing that leads me to believe it isn't the batteries themselves is that the one lights up full when I hit the tester button.

[TheOutcaste]

Originally Posted by KidDynamike

#1 will not read anything other than "Not Present" and #2 switches between "not present" and how it looks in the picture.

Does this mean that both batteries show as not present when in port 1? Or does one battery show as not present in both ports?
If Port 1 won't show either battery, but both appear in Port 2, then Port 1 is bad.
If one battery won't show in either port, then it's that battery that's bad.

When you click on an individual battery icon, what addition info does it give you?

On the one that lights up full, the tester could be bad, or the connection between the batteries and the battery pack connector may be bad. If this one shows as not present in both ports, I would suspect a bad /broken connection inside the battery pack.

Jerry