Resolved Dell laptop doesn't recognize battery

My youngest daughter, who is away at college, has a Dell Latitude E5520 laptop that is less than two years old. Her laptop displayed a message saying the battery was no longer providing the correct amount of charge and needed replaced. She took it in to the university's IT department and they told her she needed a new battery. She called Dell and $140 later they said they would ship her the battery. Instead, they shipped it to our home address. By that point I had found the exact same battery new on Amazon. I confirmed it was the same by enlarging the picture of it on Amazon and comparing the numbers on the label with the battery shipped to our house. The battery on Amazon was $46. I called Dell and made arrangements to return the battery to them. When my daughter got the battery from Amazon and tried to install it, she got a message saying the computer didn't recognize the battery. She took it to the IT department and they told her that the battery wouldn't work because it didn't come straight from Dell. They said programs could have been put on the battery so the computer wouldn't recognize it.

This makes no sense to me. Dell wouldn't put "programs" on the battery because as far as they know they're just selling a battery. Amazon wouldn't put a "program" on the battery because why would they want to sell a battery to an end user that wouldn't work?

I confess I don't know too much about laptops, and this whole deal is complicated by the fact that my daughter is several hours away, so I don't have the laptop in front of me. Any advice will be appreciated.

 

I have an HP Pavilion dv4-2167sb Notebook PC. The battery went dead. I replaced it with a universal battery. When I tried to run a battery test on it I got a message Battery condition unknown. I returned that one and purchased a battery from HP. When I did the test again I got a message Battery condition good. So I wouldn't be to sure about battery programs being installed on laptops to insure that you purchase a battery from the Original Equipment Manufacturer(OEM).

 

This wasn't a universal battery. It was a Dell battery identical to the one Dell shipped to me by mistake.

 

I have bought several batteries from e-bay. First one I bought for an older Dell I had, when I took the old battery out and looked at all the writing on it, it was the same exact sticker that was on the e-bay one. They have people that buy them in bulk for the PC Manufactures and then resell them on e-bay. Had a friend who did this for a couple of years and made tons of $$$. He is no longer with us.

Every battery that I have bought from e-bay has worked as good as the one from the Manufacture and for about 1/4 of the price with FREE shipping and most had at least 1 year and some had a 2 year warranty.

 

I was only relating to an experience that I had with an HP machine that I own. That's all. I am not saying that is your case scenario. Don't get me wrong I buy a lot of computer parts and other products form Amazon.com and other websites. I think they all have great products and great prices. My apologies. I know you will get it straightened out. I learned a lot form windowsbbs.com. When I can't figure out a problem this is the site I post in. I have yet to be let down.

 

You are right, they don't put "programs" on batteries, but they (Dell, not Amazon) could install a device that registers with the monitoring program to determine if genuine or not. Still, the battery should work as I believe it is illegal for Dell to make it so they would not work - similar to how printer makers can no longer "tag" ink cartridges to prevent use of aftermarket ink.

However, I suspect the replacement battery was bad rather than modified.

I buy from Amazon without reservations but I don't trust eBay to vet their sellers or products.

 

I guess I'll contact Dell to see what they say. I would think I could return the battery to Amazon if it is defective. I'm going to see my daughter this weekend, so I might just wait until then to try to figure this out.

 

I had to return a product that was defective motherboard tester amazon didn't hesitate to take the return and issue a refund. You should not have a problem returning the product.

 

Yes Bill, you are so right about the Comp Manufacturers have detection cookies or software that detects "Foreign" parts. HP gets on my wick with the genuine HP ink cartridge (I get refilled at Cartridge World) continually telling me that the printer has detected a "non-genuine" cartridge.
The electronic circuit on the cartridge has to be re-set with a special tool to enable it to work in the printer and show ink levels.

I emailed HP that I thought their price structure on genuine cartridges was too steep and it did not encourage me to buy HP printers! Let alone new cartridges.

Naturally I have not had a reply from them.

The batteries can be purchased with all the "genuine" labelling look about them, but can be of "pirate" manufacture.
Cell phone batteries are a good example. These batteries even have the genuine part number on them! Neil.

 

I don't know Dells, but at work I have seen battery problems from a fleet of hundreds of laptops. We had a spate of bad batteries and we replaced them from a local supplier of generic batteries. Our laptop lease is three years and only a small percentage of the generic batteries survived until the end of lease...although they were probably from the same source as the original "bad" supply.

Batteries can not only slowly "die ", they can just break down suddenly.

The brand of laptops we use (Lenovo) have a "power manager" software. It can tell you all the details of the battery (and like you said, when or if, the battery needs replacing). I suggest you uninstall the Dell power manager and see if that makes a difference. (Check you have a source to reinstall it first.) You will then only get the charge level, not the condition of the battery.

Does the battery actually work? I expect it means the Dell softare on the computer cannot read the chip in the battery (like "The electronic circuit on the cartridge has to be re-set with a special tool to enable it to work in the printer and show ink levels ").

The battery might be working correctly, but the Dell laptop cannot talk to it.

Matt

 

Sometimes laptops won’t recognize a new battery unless fully discharged.

Try this:
Remove AC power
Remove old battery
Press and hold power on button for 15 seconds
Cross fingers
Now install new battery

Luck
Might also want to check that bios is updated.
Heard that could be a problem but never saw it.

 

We returned the battery to Amazon and bought another Dell battery from a different provider on Amazon. My daughter just installed it and said it works fine. Thanks for all of the suggestions.

 

Glad to hear that the problem has been fixed.

Please mark this thread as resolved.

 

Glad you got it sorted out.

 

Good to hear Amazon took care of you.