Battery Drain + Power Off Issue

I've had a strange people recently plaguing my D630 (purchased June 2008).

The battery states 100%, pull the plug, and within a minute, it goes to about 10%, then the laptop shuts down.

Now, here's the catch - the battery is still good. I've tried the battery out in my other D630 and it works perfect, still holding a charge. I also tried the other laptop's battery in the problem laptop and it did the same thing.

Called Dell, they sent someone to replace the motherboard. Well, the new motherboard has issues.

When we first powered on the replacement board, it tried to boot into Windows and threw a BSOD. Couldn't catch what it said, as it quickly turned off. Turned the laptop back on, tries to load back into Vista, and it just powers off.

It keeps doing this for another 5 or so times. I finally try Safe Mode - I'm able to get in. I restart the computer, powers off. I try again, and it boots normally.

At this point, I start copying my files off, so I can have them in case I need to reinstall. After about 10 minutes, the laptop powers off.

Also, the laptop is still draining batteries.

Dell is going to have another motherboard out here tomorrow, but I'm curious if someone has any input on this - if maybe it's something else. I've used several different power supplies (65 and 90, plus I dock at home on the big dock).

I do have the Nvidia "problem" card, but they usually do a garbled screen, not just completely powering off. I am recharging the battery now, and I'm going to try just running the machine in BIOS.

 

It's unlikely to be power drain because to use 90% of the capacity in 10 minutes would create a lot of heat. Therefore the problem is most likely in the communication between the battery and the BIOS.

You can do one test to exclude the Windows installation: Swap the HDDs between the two machines and see if the battery behaves the same.

You can also disable the critical battery action in Windows so the computer keeps running when the battery thinks it is almost empty. I've had some notebooks run for 10 minutes when the battery is on 0. Maybe yours will run for a few hours and sort itself out.

John

 

I may try swapping the HDDs this weekend, hopefully no issues though, as the machines are not identical (bought 2+ years apart, Intel vs Nvidia, Dell vs Intel wifi, different processors, etc). I'd rather reinstall my Vista laptop then have to reinstall my work laptop due to all the software.

When I ran the machine in BIOS, it went from 100 to 97 percent in about 5-10mins, so it almost seems like an OS problem.

The thing is, it kills the battery, like literally. It is at 100%, then it hits 9% really quick, then it turns off. Same battery in the other machine just slowly decreases. Ran it for over an hour the other night, was fine. When I turn the machine back on, BIOS even shows 9% (as did computer 2).

Someone is coming out today to replace the mobo again. Maybe this time will be better. Onto Motherboard number 3...

 

Different GPUs might cause a problem with swapping the HDD.

How about leaving the computer sitting atvthe BIOS screen for a few hours? The other option is to boot using a Linux (eg Ubuntu) live CD and seeing how long that runs on battery. You should also be able to monitor the power drain.

John

 

Received the new motherboard today, still had battery problem.

Went into Vista, Firefox was throwing invalid cert errors. Reinstalled Firefox and performed Vista updates... magically it starts working.

Hopefully the new motherboard will solve my touchpad problems (randomly stops working - already had it replaced once).

Ubuntu was my next thought, as I've got a live cd sitting here. If it starts acting up again, that is my next thing. Hoping in a few weeks to install W7, once I get the chance to completely test it out in VMWare.

With these GPU problems, I'm starting to wonder how many motherboards I'll go threw in the lifetime of this machine.. already at 3..

 

Have you performed a BIOS update? The latest update (A16) fixes an issue where the battery can drain rapidly/unexpectedly when the computer is run on AC power. This is an update i've been meaning to do myself. It doesn't seem to fix your exact issue, but it might help somewhat.

http://support.dell.com/support/dow...typeid=-1&dateid=-1&formatid=-1&fileid=327112

 

There's a good chance that a spare motherboard might have been sitting on a shelf for a while and wouldn't have the latest BIOS. Sensibly, Dell would get the technician to update the BIOS after installation.

John