Buy non-original battery ...or not?

[6730b]

Hello, anyone used any of the cheap china batteries? They abound on Amazon.
I'd believe they could be ok, with decent cells, but is the potential gamble worth the savings.
 

[jaybee83]

19 hours ago, 6730b said:

Hello, anyone used any of the cheap china batteries? They abound on Amazon.
I'd believe they could be ok, with decent cells, but is the potential gamble worth the savings.
 

as you said yourself, its a gamble. could work, could end in disaster 🙂 

[M4980]

I always go with the KingSener brand from Aliexpress. They seem reliable from my experience and have the genuine capacity stated

 

https://kingsener.aliexpress.com/store/1898372

 

 

Got this 9-cell few months ago for my M4800.

[6730b]

On 6/21/2022 at 5:50 PM, M4980 said:

I always go with the KingSener brand from Aliexpress. They seem reliable from my experience and have the genuine capacity stated

Your post made me go ahaead to test a 97 Wh China battery off Amazon, more out of curiosity how it'll behave than out of any real savings concerns. Got good reviews, hopefully true, time will tell. Btw not impressed by the original Dell 56 Wh, towards 45% wear without that many cycles, also a reason for trying another brand.

[6730b]

& done, Amazon is good... First impressions: the 97 Wh "Wikinu" fitted nicely, did not explode :O) & numbers are perfect.
+ an inexpensive ssd, needed some more space than the 500 GB fitted.


 

 

[jaybee83]

On 6/30/2022 at 7:25 PM, 6730b said:

& done, Amazon is good... First impressions: the 97 Wh "Wikinu" fitted nicely, did not explode :O) & numbers are perfect.
+ an inexpensive ssd, needed some more space than the 500 GB fitted.


 

 

glad to hear, definitely smth to keep in mind for future battery purchases 🙂 also good choice on that 980, its basically the best performing DRAM-less SSD out there.

[6730b]

Update 1: a fine initial honeymoon, then things changed. Wear level 7%, that's tolerable if it would stay there for the future ...but far worse: sudden loss of power > laptop shutdown when the charge goes down to around 50%. Will give it a few full charge cycles to see if it profits form some kind of run-in (bad sign, should not be necessary). As it stands it's close to a return to Amazon then get an original Dell batt.
 

[6730b]

Things going much better today, battery 'awakening' after some use?. Wear level now showing only 1.1 %.
7,5+ hours Netflix wifi stream no problem, and a little juice left to browse and post this. If it can stabilize with such numbers then all is fine for my needs.
So battery stays put ftm, will make the final evaluation just before the 30 days return period expires.

[jaybee83]

thats a weird one. keep us updated mate

[6730b]

Things going well ftm. Numbers from browser activity only, no netflix etc.
 

[6730b]

ok... that battery had new hiccups, another sudden drop from 50% to 0, & wear levels changing randomly- Patience exhausted and returned to Amazon.
Won't critisize the brand, could have been a one-of faulty sample. Now wondering if finding any interest in testing another low-price one, or go for original Dell.

btw, impressed by Amazon, reimbursed quite immediately after delivering the package at post office, long before Amazon actually receive it.

[jaybee83]

12 hours ago, 6730b said:

btw, impressed by Amazon, reimbursed quite immediately after delivering the package at post office, long before Amazon actually receive it.

yep had the same thing happen to me recently, was also pleasantly surprised. however, i think i read somewhere that in case they find something funky with ur return, theyll just charge ur amazon account 😛 

[6730b]

Ok, ordered another brand, GDORUN, 97Wh 6GTPY, made by "Shenzhenshi Tengfeichunkeshangwu youxiangongsi", with such a name it can only imply eternal electrical bliss & prosperity :O)

[6730b]

On 7/10/2022 at 10:02 PM, 6730b said:

Ok, ordered another brand, GDORUN, 97Wh 6GTPY, made by "Shenzhenshi Tengfeichunkeshangwu youxiangongsi", with such a name it can only imply eternal electrical bliss & prosperity :O)

Fitted nicely, charging well, good initial numbers.

[jaybee83]

2 hours ago, 6730b said:

Fitted nicely, charging well, good initial numbers.

lets see if that stays that way after the previous experience haha. fingers crossed!

[6730b]

So, a few days of heavy use of the GDORUN 97Wh, good capcaity, no heat, charging well, but..... 2 instances so far where the laptop failed to boot with a (fully charged) battery.

1st time booted after a short connection of the power supply, then battery behaved normal.
2nd time, charging led in front of laptop blinking orange, no boot, had to open bottom, unplug and replug the battery, then ok.

Basically. looks like (some, many?) 1\2 price batteries comes with 1\2 reliability in one way or another. Am always fond of some tests and experiments, will give the GDORUN a few days more, will maybe settle. But soon no more maybe's, it's a return then get hold of an original Dell, and hopefully close the case (...laptop bottom) for good.
 

[jaybee83]

3 hours ago, 6730b said:

So, a few days of heavy use of the GDORUN 97Wh, good capcaity, no heat, charging well, but..... 2 instances so far where the laptop failed to boot with a (fully charged) battery.

1st time booted after a short connection of the power supply, then battery behaved normal.
2nd time, charging led in front of laptop blinking orange, no boot, had to open bottom, unplug and replug the battery, then ok.

Basically. looks like (some, many?) 1\2 price batteries comes with 1\2 reliability in one way or another. Am always fond of some tests and experiments, will give the GDORUN a few days more, will maybe settle. But soon no more maybe's, it's a return then get hold of an original Dell, and hopefully close the case (...laptop bottom) for good.
 

could it be that the battery couldnt handle an initial power spike during boot? such spikes would require higher quality batteries, naturally

[6730b]

^^^ or could simply be (some, many of) these batteries (or the elctronics\sensors) are bad quality :O)

Latest entertainment after posting my above post, refused to restart from sleep, like no \ flat battery, although around 50% charge. Again, plug in the power cord and it started, and battery re-worked.

Old 56 wh (now 35 wh) Dell batt back in place. Amazon gets another return. Thanks for the audience at this topic, hoping it's been useful for those in need of batteries... 😄
 

[jaybee83]

12 hours ago, 6730b said:

^^^ or could simply be (some, many of) these batteries (or the elctronics\sensors) are bad quality :O)

Latest entertainment after posting my above post, refused to restart from sleep, like no \ flat battery, although around 50% charge. Again, plug in the power cord and it started, and battery re-worked.

Old 56 wh (now 35 wh) Dell batt back in place. Amazon gets another return. Thanks for the audience at this topic, hoping it's been useful for those in need of batteries... 😄
 

the audience thanks you, very entertaining and insightful 😄 

[6730b]

No more china batt testing. Will keep the original Dell battery until really unuseable, it has lost capacity but never fails in ridiculous ways like the x-brand batteries tested. Ordered an original Dell 56wh, to be fitted when needed, + the cable needed for connecting a sata 2.5 in addition to the nvme.

Staying with the smaller size batt saves the space for the sata disk, a 2TB hdd will be fitted for backups and storage etc while the 1TB Samsung nvme will take care of daily routines.

[Hyper]

I would not go that way. Li-Ion batteries are a bit risky. Even brandname original batteries of major notebook manufacturers have had serious problems in the past. 3rd party batteries are riskier because you don't know to which quality and safety standards they are manufactured. They probably will be fine, but it's a gamble. And if you're on the losing end of the gamble there can be fire. Just buy original Dell ones for your laptop.

[ygohome]

I'm thankful for this thread because my 6+ yr old 91 Wh li-ion laptop battery in my 7710 is really in need of replacement.  I'm going straight for a Dell battery, which is probabl still from China, but hopefully has more stringent standards.  It's 3x the amazon prices, but I think its worth it based on this thread's results.

 

ran a powercfg cmdlet in powershell. 

 

 

I'm not sure how accurate it is because I don't think there is anyway a 6+ yr old 91 Wh can still be at 90,995 mWh when fully charged, or how it can be 151% charged.  But when unplugged from AC that 90,995 dropped instantly to show 59,554 mWh when on battery.

 

It continued to last about 17 minutes before going to sleep.  Not bad considering it is on dGPU (2% usage at the time in Task Mgr), two external 2k displays plus the laptop 4k is on too.  And doing a backup over network using Veeam agent.  I accidentally unplugged the AC from laptop, I don't normally run on battery under such conditions.

 

 

It drained down to 3,876 mWh in about 17 minutes and then automatically went to sleep.

 

Then I charged it for an hour, back to 45% and then unplugged it again :

 

It's super low mWh when unplugged after an hour of charging.  It should have read 45% or something close to that when unplugged, but it quickly dropped from 45%  and 27,189 mWh down to 1% and only 353mWh when unplugged .  When plugged back in it reads at 45% again.  Definitely time for new battery.

 

*edit and correction:   In that final screenshot shown above, the 1% and 353mWh represents the Energy Drained, not the battery energy level.  That means it only drained 1% and drained 353mWh when I unplugged it while it was at 45% and 27,189mWh... which makes more sense.  I'm still ordering a new Dell battery though and it should arrive soon.  I ran Dells diagnostic and it says battery health is at 59% and is due for replacement.  Not bad after 6 yrs I think.  I'll run diagnostics and a series of powercfg reports while on battery after the new one arrives.

 

 

Edited October 26, 2022 by ygohome
*correction added to the end

[Easa]

For Haswell and newer Dell laptops I strictly recommend using only original, genuine Dell batteries. Do not purchase those from Ebay or Aliexpress, they are not original even if they look like. Compare the battery that was in the laptop with the chinese "genuine" ebay one, and you will see that the markings and font used are different. Dell is probably the most sensitive about batteries out of all laptops. 

 

 

[jeamn]

5 hours ago, Easa said:

For Haswell and newer Dell laptops I strictly recommend using only original, genuine Dell batteries. Do not purchase those from Ebay or Aliexpress, they are not original even if they look like. Compare the battery that was in the laptop with the chinese "genuine" ebay one, and you will see that the markings and font used are different. Dell is probably the most sensitive about batteries out of all laptops. 

 

 

 

I would agree with this.  I had a ton of problems with batteries with my old 7720 that I eventually gave up one.  The problem that I found was that I could no longer get an official Dell battery from Dell, only from miscellaneous internet retailers, which I'm pretty sure were the same "genuine" batteries.  The prices would vary from $40 to $120, but they all had the same stock photos with the same markings.

[6730b]

Some months now using a 'real' Dell 56wh > zero problems, behaved perfect from day 1.
Paid for something that was actually worth the money, ref. the ridiculous trouble with the cheaper clones (see posts above).
+++ to Amazon, no problems returning \ getting fast refunds for the misbehaving clones.