XPS M1330 battery light

[empacher48]

Hi All;

Just wondering what a alternate blue/red flashing light for the battery indicator on the front of the panel means? It flashes blue once then 5 red very quickly.

The 9 cell battery still lasts over 5 hours when fully charged, charges correctly to 100% in the usual time. I have removed the battery and just run off the power adapter, the red light does go away.

I am hoping it is just the sign of an impending battery failure, rather than a complete melt down of the PSU.

[empacher48]

Thanks StaceyF, I have reseated the battery and checked the BIOS. Also with the battery out I checked the status lights which showed 100% health, the BIOS said the same too.

[Bushfiva]

Blue & amber means "battery too hot". See your user manual around p. 100. Blue & 5 red flashes, no idea :-)

[mad_jock]

As a personal guess I would say your AC adapter is knackard or about to be knackard in the not so distant future.

If you put your hand on it see if its roasting hot.

The blue then red red red red red says to me the thermal cut out is cycling. It puts charge through (blue) then over heats cuts out and cools (the reds) then once cools puts charge through again which then overheats etc etc.

But looking at this article Nabble - cheapbattery - Dell XPS M1330 Battery Q&A (http://n2.nabble.com/Dell-XPS-M1330-Battery-Q-A-td3065774.html#a3065774) it seems like there could be a whole raft of issues going on under the hood.

Actually scrub the idea on the AC adapter after reading some more articles on that machine box it up and send it back to Dell looks like that model is a right lemon.

[empacher48]

Thanks guys.

I do realise the M1330 was a right lemon (3 motherboard replacements later - at Dell's expense thank you). The AC adapter is about as warm as the others around the house and the light sequence does stop when the battery is removed.

Oh well, it looks like I'll be getting that Macbook Pro a bit earlier then.

[mad_jock]

Ouch. Get your mac and stick some version of linux on it and see if that cures it.

[empacher48]

Anything has to be better than windows...

[empacher48]

Just tried the laptop fix suggested in one of the threads here. All that has done is told the BIOS that the battery is indeed on the way out - but won't stop the lights.

[mad_jock]

This is getting to the clutching at straws stage but...

Take the battery out and use a small screw driver the scrape all the contacts then clean them with some aftershave on the end of a cotton wool bud.

If this doesn't work its going to have to be a black bit of tape over the lights. I for one would be mighty pissed off with dell about this machine. They arn't cheap!!!

[empacher48]

They aren't cheap, but they've had major problems. I've had the motherboard/GPU replaced twice due to overheating. I did receive this one as part of the first batch into NZ when I bought it so its done plenty of miles as a partial desktop replacement!

But I did clean the contacts as the first thing I did, to no avail. The cost of a replacement battery for it is NZD$600 from Dell. There aren't any cheaper on NZ's version of e-bay either...

Next laptop isn't going to be Dell after this one.