Battery Business Blog

My Dell XPS M1530 is still my dream laptop and after 18 months, I still love the machine. But the battery has not lived up to expectations. The 6-cell battery, which used to run a about 2 hours at “best performance,” went to 1.5hrs and is now down to 5 minutes.

Related article: Also details the proprietary nature of Dell AC adapters.

I expect the batteries to degrade with age, and at first, I was disappointed with the battery. But I have now come to the conclusion that the battery worked hard and simply died. It was not treated well because in the first year of its life, it spent most of its time plugged into the charger. As described in this ASUS V2Je battery article, this was not the best thing to do. As I’ve researched on the web, a twelve to eighteen month battery-life seems to be the norm and all agree this is too short. But there are only 6 little batteries in this case, and it has to drive a large, power-hungry device. None-the-less, the decline of the battery was precipitous.

$140: About 13% of the original Laptop Price!

Here is the real pain: Dell wants $140 for a (ctrl-Click to open new window). This makes for expensive on-going maintenance. Because of this, I’ve begun searching for a more reasonable way to replace the battery pack. It is a shame I have to do this because I would prefer to log onto Dell’s site, click a few buttons ASUS V2 battery and have a new battery on the way, paying with my existing Dell credit. A message to Dell: Happy customers are repeat customers; we expect batteries to fail but don’t want to be robbed when they do.

The question comes down to this:
Are Off-brand batteries as good as Dell’s?

In my opinion: Dell does not make their batteries — they buy them like everyone else and the insides are standard. As long as you are buying from a reputable company (and are not buying low-ball price with rebuilt/recycled batteries), you should be getting identical equipment.

BatteryEdge.com

Because of Dell’s high replacement costs, I have decided to buy a third-party 6-cell battery through

Formerly, I had also suggested PacificBattery.com but even though they ASUS V2J batteryseem to have a good reputation on the net, they have been unresponsive to several emails and phonecalls.

The website was clear and easy to use
Total cost: $56 + 5 Ground ($61)
Shipped UPS Ground, arriving on time (5 business days)

(This is from BatteryEdge)
New replacement laptop battery for Dell XPS M1530/D1530 TK330
$56.00 plus $5.00 Ground Freight (Dell is $140 + Freight)

Condition: Brand New OEM Equivalent
100% New Cells; never rebuilt or recycled
Voltage: 11.1 Volts
Capacity: 4800 mAh
Battery Type: Li-ion 6 Cells
Warranty: 1 Year Warranty, guaranteed to meet or exceed the original OEM specifications.

The battery is a near-exact replacement of the original Dell, including the rubberized foot pad, arriving 90% charged. After a brief top-off, the battery on Balanced power-mode shows 3 hours total time (screen dimmed), 2.75hrs (with the brighter-screen setting). Although it will take a few days to re-calibrate the ASUS V2S battery  and confirm, these values match a new Dell battery.

A Close, but not Perfect Fit:

The new battery fits *tightly* into the XPS slot, taking noticeable pressure to lock the battery into place. Although this was acceptable, it could be improved.

I wondered why it was tighter. I measured various dimensions using a .001″ metal micrometer and compared the old battery with the new. Most measurements were the same, within the limits of where the tool could measure, but I did find two possible differences. Both batteries have a lip on the inside edge. On the BatteryEdge, the lip extended a consistent 5000th of an inch wider than the ASUS B80 battery Dell (this is the thickness of a sheet of paper). I believe this edge touched the case-slot and prevented the battery from fitting as well as it should.

I milled the edge by hand using a long metal file. I am not necessarily recommending you need to do this — but I filed the edge because I knew how and wanted to see if the fit improved, which it did, but the battery still takes some pressure to lock into place.

The only other area which could account for the snug fit are the two locking posts (interior dimensions) and because of positioning, I could not accurately measure. My bet is there is variance along this dimension. Only having a sample of 1 makes this hard to generalize.

What about Rebuilding yourself?

After much research, it seems like too much trouble to rebuild the battery. The battery cases are welded shut and can’t be opened without mutilation. Replacing the batteries involves careful soldering and there are circuit boards to worry about. The batteries will explode if you accidentally cross polarities ASUS V2S-B1 battery or get the soldering iron too hot. The cost for the parts is about $35, approaching an off-brand purchase. Here is a DIY.

The batteries are 3.7v Li-Ion (these are not standard AA batteries),
Sony EnergyTec US18650GR;
Panasonic CGR18650,
LG ICR18650,
Samsung. ICR18650, and others.

Dell (especially on the XPS M1530) has a proprietary AC adapter, which is generating a lot of ill-will throughout the user community. Both the standard Dell 90-watt power supply and the (Keyliner reviewed), has a “center data-communication pin” on the business-end of the plug. The pin is a hair-thin wire that is easily damaged or broken and its purpose has not been disclosed. Although this is not the case with my battery, when the pin breaks, the laptop will not charge. Most think this is a way to keep third-party manufacturers ASUS A32-V2 from duplicating the power supply, but I now believe they legitimately needed to transmit wattage information along this circuit — although they could have done this in a less proprietary manner.

In a separate article (not posted here), a tech at batteryedge.com said most of the batteries returned to their company are perfectly good – it is the AC adapter that was malfunctioning. This website offers suggestions on how to test the AC adapter, see links on right-side. The website is somewhat superficial and does not speak directly to the XPS, but it has a variety of information about laptops and parts and you may find it interesting.

My overall impression of BatteryEdge.com:
BatteryEdge is a reputable company selling a quality product and I would do business with them again. As of late-April 2010, I have had the battery for several months and it is performing marvelously. I am still pleased with the purchase.

Update:
In June, 2010, I noticed the battery was failing. Symptoms: discharged ASUS N51S battery after a few minutes of use; a 100% recharge only took 10 minutes, but total performance was lost. Windows 7 suggests I should “replace the battery”. I sent a polite note to BatteryEdge customer support. The next day, I got this reply:

“I am sorry you are having problems with the battery. I have issued RMA #XXXX for the return of the battery. A UPS prepaid shipping label will be emailed to you. Please note that it can take up to 3 days for the label to arrive in the email. Once you receive the prepaid shipping label , print it out and tape it to the ASUS A33-V2 package. Drop it off at a UPS drop off location. As soon as we get it back we will send you a replacement battery. Be sure to use the label within 10 days.”

You can’t complain about this type of service. This was a good company to order from, and when something went wrong, they stood behind their product. I am still pleased. Replacement Review.

Update: 2011.06: For another laptop I ordered a new set of batteries. Delivery was about 4 days later than expected (they were moving warehouses), but other than that, no issues.

Plain simple body design

Acer Aspire 3750G is a 13 inches, its design is basic and the Aspire 4750G, although not too many fancy modification, but it does not look like a low-end products. The top cover of Acer Aspire 3750G with gray and black design, the roof surface engraved texture to make the body look more three-dimensional ASPIRE ONE 531 battery sense. In addition, 13 in. body with excellent portability, this is more important for users who often need to carry laptop for mobile use.

Product positioning point of view, the Acer Aspire 3750G mainly for those workers entering the workforce, they do not need too strong gaming performance, the processor performance to meet the daily office can, and relatively inexpensive, fuselage and lightweight and portable, full range of interfaces.

Cheap does not equal low quality, this machine is fine in workmanship or duckweed keyboard design of fashion, Dolby certified speakers, USB 3.0 interface configuration, which reflects the Acer notebook design intentions. In addition to the gray outside, this Acer Aspire 3750G blue ASPIRE ONE 532H battery version to choose from, like the lively, colorful style of the user can also choose the blue version of the Acer Aspire 3750G.

The fuselage details introduced

Roof design, the Acer Aspire 3750G using gray and black design, chrome-plated Acer LOGO in the fuselage central dark body design does give a strong sense of business. As previously mentioned, the product of 13 inches is relatively easier to carry, this machine in the style and the traditional consumer-grade products is very different.

Although this machine uses a sunken screen axis design, but its screen, the maximum opening angle of 150 °, basically the screen flat on the desktop, so you can more user-friendly display of screen information to others. In addition, this machine’s screen damping force is very suitable for the user ASPIRE ONE ZG5 battery with one hand alone can easily open the screen.
The Aspire 3750G’s keyboard uses Acer’s usual the duckweed style keyboard design, this design Acer has been used for a long time, its appearance looks very stylish, and feel pretty good, only downside is because the key of the gap between the larger, more difficult to clean up after the fall into the debris.

In interface design, the right of the fuselage of this machine configured with two USB ports, the cable interface and the DVD burner on the left fuselage with audio interface, USB interface, HDMI interface and power connector. Should be noted that this machine with a USB3.0 interface, for a price of 4000 yuan to climb products is impossible to find elsewhere.
We can see that by simply dismantling, this machine is configured with a single 2GB memory, and there is a slot for users to upgrade in the future. In addition, the memory is next to the hard disk region, the entire hard drive is fully protected by a metal stent, so you can better guarantee the Aspire 9300 battery stability of the hard work.

Entry-level hardware configuration

Acer Aspire 3750G is not a product of the main performance, but its hardware configuration is also part of the mainstream level, this machine uses the Intel Core i3 2310M processor, 2GB memory and 500GB hard drive, and it also equipped with a NVIDIA Geforce the GT 520M discrete graphics.

Acer Aspire 3750G supports two graphics capabilities, the system will actually use to automatically choose to use a discrete graphics work or the Core Graphics. NVIDIA Geforce GT 520M belong to the current entry-level discrete graphics performance and Intel the Graphics HD 3000 Core graphics performance gap is very small.
In other performance aspects of the life of this machine for two hours and 29 minutes, quite satisfactory result. In addition, the cooling capacity, albeit not outstanding, but basically can afford within the scope of After all, the Acer Aspire 3750G is a 13-inch alone significantly TRAVELMATE C300 battery notebook, calorie control, or have no small difficulty.

Overall hardware performance evaluation

Hardware configuration, get this Acer Aspire 3750G is equipped with a 32nm process technology, Intel Core i3 2310M dual-core processor, equipped with the Intel HM65 chipset, configured with large capacity 500GB 5400RPM hard drive, and 2GB of DDR3 1333MHz high speed memory, and machine factory pre-installed Windows 7 Home Basic Edition operating system. Graphics cards, the models with the strong performance of the NVIDIA GeForce GT 520M discrete graphics card that comes with the processor Intel HD 3000 Type Core Graphics composed of two graphics function.

Before the start of the performance test, we first AIDA, 64 CPUID tool to look at this Intel Core i3 2310M processor, which based on 32nm process technology, the core code-named Sandy Bridge, the initial frequency of 2.1GHz, shared L3 cache is 3MB, the overall TDP of 35W, supports Hyper-Threading Technology with the latest AVX instruction set.

Understanding of the basic information of the processor, we use the software CINEBENCH R10 its performance was evaluated, the software on a single processor and multi-core performance gives intuitive score, Fengyun Core Aspire 4920 battery i3 2310M processor soon completed all of the contents of the tests, and ultimately its single-core 3470 points, the dual-core 7427 points, compared to the previous generation, a significant performance boost, among the best in the current processor performance.

Acer Aspire 3750G gaming performance has always been the general performance of the model with the current entry-level NVIDIA GeForce GT 520M discrete graphics, 3DMark Vantage, its graphics performance was evaluated, final GPU partially the excellent score of 9645 points in the current mainstream mobile graphics, located in low-end.

We have said before, this Acer Aspire 3750G is equipped with a Western Digital 500GB 5400RPM high-capacity hard drives, we tested its performance through HD Tune. We see from TravelMate 5600 battery the screenshot of the test results, this hard drive average transfer rate of 67.8MB / s maximum transfer rate of 80.9MB / s, while the minimum transfer rate of 43.3MB / s, coupled with the access time of 19.9 ms its overall performance in the mainstream standards.

Finally, we tested the overall performance of this product, use the software for the PCMark Vantage, it is a commonly used software of a comprehensive assessment of notebook performance by simulating user a variety of practical applications, given all aspects of daily application of the notebook assessment of results.

From the overall situation, the academic performance of Acer Aspire 3750 battery points, not bad. Acer Aspire 3750G has a decent performance in business applications. For hard drive score of 3405 points and 3585 points for the memory score, in the mainstream standards.

Cooling and endurance performance test

In the first part of the performance tests, we have this Acer Aspire 3750G mobile performance were assessed. Below, we use electronic scales to be weighing this machine, the machine with battery weighs 2.07kg travel weight of 2.453kg, for a 13-inch notebook in the mainstream heavyweight on.

Thermal performance testing, we used FurMark software allows this machine to run in the high load condition, after about an hour’s time, the processor temperature rises to 75 ° C, the core TravelMate 4600 battery temperature reached 75 ° C, a single temperature from the sensor Acer Aspire 3750G overall temperature of the internal hardware is below 80 ℃, is not very high.
Thermal imaging devices, the surface temperature of the test surface of body C and D surface. Among them, the keyboard part in contact with the user frequently the maximum temperature of only 44.4 ° C maximum temperature of the bottom of the fuselage was 53.3 ° C, thermal performance is acceptable. From the heat maps, we can see the red area the highest temperature for the surface of the keyboard, the red areas are concentrated in the center of the keyboard parts, while the bottom is concentrated in the part of the left side vents.

Finally, we look at what Acer, the Acer Aspire 3750G battery life? Battery specifications from the point of view, the model comes standard 48Wh lithium ion battery, Windows 7 life assessment of their endurance tested. The ultimate life of this machine for two hours and 29 minutes, is the current mainstream 13-inch average alone significantly notebook computers. Of course, this result can only be as a reference value of view, the actual performance of different applications based on user differences.

Related Battery Code:ACER AS07B32 battery,ACER BATCL50L battery,ACER BTP-58A1 battery,TravelMate 2350 battery ,TRAVELMATE 4500 battery

An un-interruptable power supply (UPS) provides battery power for your computer when the main grid fails. During a “power anomaly,” these relatively inexpensive devices keep the computer running for about 10 to 12 minutes — giving enough time to save your work and DELL Studio 1535 battery shut down. If you are not at home, included software can gracefully shut down the computer.

The real reason for a UPS is to protect the hard disk from brownouts and power surges. Power gremlins like these can fry a computer’s motherboard but a bigger fear is corrupting the hard disk — which would ruin everything. As always, data is more valuable than hardware.

For these reasons, I’ve always used a UPS on my main computer. But recent events showed my old UPS was tired and I was forced to fix it.

My UPS is Pooped-out:

My (six) year old APC cs350 UPS has been slowly dying. The unit has a sealed, lead-acid rechargeable battery and like a car battery, it can lose its punch. When it was new, it ran the computer Dell Studio 1735 battery and two monitors for about 10 to 12 minutes — but now it can hold a charger for 2 or 3 seconds.
The final straw came last week when my Brother HL-2040 laser printer (Keyliner reviewed- not recommended), printed a page and then surprised me by rebooting the workstation. When it crashed, a document was lost, the RAID array failed, and all kinds of other mayhem occurred. As I found out later, it had been crashing each time my children printed from their laptops — but they never noticed my computer Dell Studio 1537 battery had crashed. The prior week I noted the RAID was constantly rebuilding and when I put two-and-two together, I understood the issue. Bounces like this are hard on equipment and they were happening far too frequently.

Although it is safe to plug an inkjet printer into a UPS (on the surge-side), one should never plug a power-hungry laser into the UPS. But out of necessity, the printer and computers live on the same household circuit — this is nearly the same as being plugged in on the same power-strip. When the printer fires up, it pulls an amazing 450 watts and the lights throughout the house (and probably throughout the neighborhood), flicker. The power company rejoices.

Sadly, the UPS was compensating for this and I never knew. Each time the printer DELL Studio 1535 battery printed, the circuit had a mini brown-out and the UPS stepped in to save the day — that is, until it became too tired to work.

APC cs350:

I am partial to the APC brand cs350 UPS, which costs about $70 and you can get one at any office-supply store. It features a user-replaceable battery and surge protection for your phone/modem.

Installing a new UPS is a cinch: Plug it into the wall. Plug in the computer and monitor, and you are set. I don’t bother with the USB connector, which can tell the computer to shut down, but I probably should.

Most UPS’s, including this one, have two rows of plug-ins. One side is Dell Studio 1735 battery and surge-protected and the other is simply a surge-protected circuit (with no battery). Here is the back-side view of the cs 350:

User Replaceable

At first, I was going to buy a new, smaller UPS, figuring it was cheaper than a new battery. Replacement batteries can be bought directly from APC’s online store for $50, which is the same price as a new, smaller UPS.

But after a little searching, a replacement battery was found at a local retailer for $33.00 — these folks know their products and are pleasant to work with. If you mail-order, they include Dell Studio 1745 battery a free return-ship for your old battery (you must recycle these batteries).

To replace the battery, literally, turn the UPS on its back, and pull the battery out, unplugging a red and black cable. It takes about a minute.

The battery is surprisingly dense and weighs about 5 pounds but with this new battery, I expect to get another 4 years service. But long before then, when the laser printer runs out of toner,DELL STUDIO 1735 battery  it will have a mysterious hardware failure, probably involving a baseball bat. This will force me to buy a new, less hungry printer.

Related Battery Code:Dell 312-0079 battery,Dell 312-0566 battery,Dell 312-0625 battery,DELL RU586 battery,DELL TK330 battery,DELL T112C battery