A little story of me trying to put together some posts of random projects I’ve been doing this year. Here’s one of the first ones.

My battery doesn’t last long at all…

So I’ve been having some trouble with my Dell XPS 16 9560. The battery would last only 45 minutes on a single charge. Granted this machine is fairly old, I would like it to run a bit longer than what it is.

The specs of this machine are pretty power hungry with an i7 7700HQ, 32gb of RAM and a 4k panel. So it has every right to suck the life out of my battery.

Options & Backstory

Before starting this project, I forgot to take a screenshot however I recall upower said it would only charge up to 27Wh of energy. With a capacity of 97wh this is roughly 28% of its original charge amount. This battery is well and truly toast.

So my options for replacement are to go to Dell and grab one, but thats going to set me back almost $200 AUD at the time of writing.

I wanted to keep this replacement as cheap as possible so this wasn’t working in this interest.

My other option is to get an eBay battery and test my luck. I’ve heard stories of people not having much luck with these batteries were batteries lasted 1 week or not working at all, but for $72 I was willing to take the risk. And if all else fails, this machine will become a server that is constantly connected to power and doesn’t even need the battery.

So its settled. I will be cheapo eBay spec batterying this laptop.

Process

The process for removal wasn’t very hard at all. Theres a dozen odd screws in the bottom of the case that need to come out, and its pretty much as simple:

• Remove all the screws from underneath the laptop,
• Unplug the batter connector,
• Remove the old battery,
• Install the new battery,
• Reinstall the connector,
• Reinstall all the screws,

Thats it!

Results

So, my results, are like many, the first battery I plugged in, allowed my pc to turn on, run for approximately an hour, then when I turned it off and opened it the next day, it wouldn’t boot.

Suprise… Surprise…

I ended up messaging the retailer back and they were kind enough to send out a replacement.

And…. this one worked!!! For a few months.

The reputation on these batteries are definitely true.

I didn’t bother messaging the retailer back another time. I’ll just cut my losses and leave it at that.

During the time it worked, I thought it was a great deal and even have upower screen grabs to share, but in reality they mean nothing now.

Conclusion

Don’t buy eBay batteries for Dell laptops.

Buy from reputable sources.

Quote

Hmm for today’s quote, I think I will choose something fitting.

“The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten”

- Benjamin Franklin