Did this laptop battery short out?

Tim

I have twin 4460 MaH battery packs in my Dell Latituce CPi-A366XT laptop. The computer frequently sits for weeks at a time without being used.

When it is used, the laptop will first use the right side battery pack if 2 are installed, then go to the left side battery pack after the right side gets low.

So when it DID get used, the right side battery always saw much more use.

I used the laptop yesterday, and had it on charge during the evening. After a few hours, I started hearing some electronic squealing / buzzing noise, and after a few minutes I found that it was coming from my laptop!

With AC power going into it and both batteries in their usual places, he computer would boot up but shut off when the AC power was removed.

So I switched the batteries, putting the left in the right bay and vice versa. With it like that, I saw that one battery was at 85%, and the other was at zero.

And on the battery itself where you can press the button and se the 5 lights light up to check its charge, one showed all 5 lights and the other none.

Did this battery short out, lose a cell, go open circuit, etc?

Whatever happened, I think it's broken. I might cut it apart and see what's inside.

lemonlime

I know with the older dell lattitude batteries, the indicator lights would be on-off-on-off-on indicating a defective battery. Usually no lights means it is simply out of charge. I wouldn't pay too much attention to the indicators though. It would not surprise me if the battery is simply dead. They sometimes die rather quickly and mysteriously like you described. I'd strongly recommend against opening up that battery, they are not meant to be servicable and contain some poisionous substances.

How old is the battery? In my experience (even with LiION batteries) it is rare to see a battery live beyond 3-4 years.