Buy non-original battery ...or not?

[aldarxt]

I don't use my batteries. That being said my Alienware 18x r2 purchased 10-12-2012, brand new has its original battery in it and its at about 93 percent. It has never been run down. Only when there is a power outage I run around shutting down the laptops, 6 active running and 1 retired and 2 dead. All active have original manufacturers batteries but not all at 100 percent. The 2 precisions when unplugged will last minuets and shut off. But none are expanding, exploding or leaking. OEM is what I would recommend. I have a Asus G51J that died 1 1/2 years ago that I put a Ninja Bat in 6 mos before it died so I have no idea how good it might have been. I went through the same dilema about what to buy. This past week I purchased from Newegg what looks to be a Alienware m17x r4 original battery and it is the only battery at 100 percent now. But I have doubts due to texture finish not matching the base of the PC it might be a clone. So just on the 18x  being so old and still working I would want OEM first choice. I don't think I could find an OEM for the 18x anyway.

[ygohome]

I forgot to update this with my results after purchasing the official dell battery from the dell website.

 

It works great.  Definitely get an official OEM battery when buying.

 

I fully charged it then I began testing it.

 

I setup bios for Intel graphics rather than dGPU.

 

I setup power options when on battery as so:

• 40% processor state minimum
• active cooling policy
• max PCIe power savings
• intel graphics maximum battery life
• medium power savings for wireless adapter

I purposefully configured this test NOT to shutoff the display or storage drives  or to enter sleep when low or critical because I wanted to see how long it would last.

 

Set power mode slider switch for "Best Battery Life".  This is a slider in the system tray when clicking on the battery icon (win10).  Not sure if that overrides any of my custom power options, but it lasted a heck of a long time before battery died.  Over 3 hrs for a 17" 4k laptop.

 

I unplugged from AC, with a minimal brightness and after 2 hrs it had only drained 54,000mWh of the 91,000mWh new battery according to the powershell battery report.  I continued the test and it stayed up for over 3 hrs.  I wasn't always working on it that whole time, just browsing internet, but the display was always on and a chrome browser was open the entire time.  That was about a month ago and it's still working great, but I'm almost always on AC.  When the battery is fully charged it remains dormant and isn't trickle charging.  Seems the Win10 OS and Dell BIOS are smart enough to know when and when not to charge the battery to ensure a longer battery life.

 

It's been a month since installing the battery and so far so good. 

 

 

 

[6730b]

Need for some Rant and Anger ! Not about Dell... but vaguely related.

Previous Dell small batt shows signs of fatigue now after heavy use, all normal, so now ditching xtra hd space to fill up with large 97wh batt (original of course, ref. earlier posts!). Looking forward to very probably tripling my battery time.

Now to the f***ing plague: (French) UPS ☠️ . Battery Amazon bought, Germany to France (am currently still there for work) in 2 days to local UPS depot in France, very good! Then.... 1 week and the damn package not yet delivered, 50 km of road, rescheduled 5 times, no delivery van turning up, no telephone, no emails, me waiting like an idiot ☠️. Calling the socalled support who wastes my time with fake excuses, promises and lies etc. Bastards !

(ps... of course a drop in the ocean vs what's happening in the world)
Thanks for reading 😀 and wish you a much better day than mine!

[6730b]

The old smaller batt (Dell original) has done an ok job, was 'just' ok for my use in the beginning, but deterioration after 2+ years of quite some use made it less than ideal. Finally got a new Dell 97 wh delivered. Looking forward to longer off-grid work.

 

[6730b]

Yes ! What a fine day :O)

Saver + light work (still fast and responsive enough), nice number (...approx of course)




Edit: if only this was true lol

[Chalybion]

My workplace is a Dell shop - out IT guy has dealt with many 'spicy pillows' and said that the most significant difference between OEM and non-OEM batteries is that non-OEMs often skimp on, or ignore, protections for overcurrent / shorts.  So buy OEM to prevent fire hazards.

[6730b]

Those non-original batteries, looked ok right after installing, ok price, fitted nicely, then after a short time went totally out of control, time & % remaining completely random, suddenly going to zero from 50%, things like that. Did not catch fire but totally unreliable. Some useable surely exists, but can't test 20 to find 1 good one.

The Dell 97Wh, no surprises, 100% health, even discharging etc. Over 10 hours medium\light workload + wifi, very good.

[meowpressreturn]

Problem is Dell stop selling the batteries much too soon. My machines are still warrantied for another couple of years - except the battery which only got 1 year, and do Dell have those batteries anymore? lolnope 

 

What is particularly irritating is how the batteries do show up in the Dell site, and its only when you try to put one in your cart that it tells you its out of stock.

 

My Precision 3551 battery is at 17% wear and doesn't seem to have swelling yet, so hopefully I can keep using it for a while yet. Its already pretty hopeless for using off the charger for anything more than moving from room to room or sending a few emails (Especially if trying to work in Visual Studio). Can maybe get a bit over an hour. Haven't tested if the machine can post with no battery or not, if it does maybe I can still use it with a bigger charger and no battery once this one gets spicy?

 

Amusingly the 11 year old (long life) battery in my E6430 has finally started popping a warning dialog saying I may notice shorter usage time. (That ship sailed a decade ago. )

[Aaron44126]

8 hours ago, meowpressreturn said:

Haven't tested if the machine can post with no battery or not, if it does maybe I can still use it with a bigger charger and no battery once this one gets spicy?

 

Every Dell laptop that I have ever tried has been able to run fine with no battery installed.  In fact, several times I have forgotten to reconnect the battery-motherboard cable after performing service on the system, and didn't notice until I got to the Windows desktop and saw the "X" in the taskbar.

[meowpressreturn]

17 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

 

Every Dell laptop that I have ever tried has been able to run fine with no battery installed.  In fact, several times I have forgotten to reconnect the battery-motherboard cable after performing service on the system, and didn't notice until I got to the Windows desktop and saw the "X" in the taskbar.

That's good to hear.

 

I've an ancient Vostro that I've been using on charger only without a battery for 15 over years. That battery suddenly decided it was faulty and would not charge anymore mere days after its warranty expired (after a year of perfect performance), and my older Latitudes with removable batteries are happy enough without one too.

 

Somewhere along the line I had got an idea there might be throttling issues with newer Precisions with internal batteries and a GPU where the battery was needed to supply extra juice because the charger wasn't quite enough when the GPU was loaded. I've never tested that myself though. 

 

 

[Aaron44126]

9 hours ago, meowpressreturn said:

That's good to hear.

 

I've an ancient Vostro that I've been using on charger only without a battery for 15 over years. That battery suddenly decided it was faulty and would not charge anymore mere days after its warranty expired (after a year of perfect performance), and my older Latitudes with removable batteries are happy enough without one too.

 

Somewhere along the line I had got an idea there might be throttling issues with newer Precisions with internal batteries and a GPU where the battery was needed to supply extra juice because the charger wasn't quite enough when the GPU was loaded. I've never tested that myself though.

 

That's a good thought I hadn't considered.  It could be concern if you have a high-end GPU.  I've only had one Precision with a beefy enough GPU for this to be a concern (Precision 7770 + GeForce 3080 Ti) but it would occasionally dip into battery for extra power if I was playing a game.  It wasn't consistent behavior, it probably happened less than 10 times during the year that I used that system.  In this case I think you would probably just see some modest GPU throttling.