Comments on: Poor Battery Life on Latitude D620

By: Umbra@**

Umbra@** — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:26:11 +0000

Warranty on a battery on a Dell system is one year. Not the term of the systems warranty.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:41:17 +0000

My D620 has the same issue. I just ordered my FOURTH battery for my D620 that is about 2 years and 4 months old.

By: mike

mike — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 03:11:23 +0000

@Xipper: Sounds like you have 5 “death lights”, meaning that your battery is operating at less than 60% of its rated capacity. You can verify this with the other tools I’ve mentioned (bios or operating system tools).

By: Xipper

Xipper — Sat, 23 May 2009 14:02:44 +0000

First of all, this page is terrific, after weeks of hunting for this kind info, I finally rolled the right search.

I have a D620 and primarily run it off of a docking station. My battery life (like everyone else) had decayed to the point of barely making it past the boot. I just purchased another Dell 6 cell and it is too early to tell, but, appreciate the tips on how to check the battery health, particularly the status button check on the battery.

I Need a little clarification on the status indicator test.

This is cut from the Dell D620 documentation link posted above, I am quoting it only for the purposes of describing my question and hope I am not violating any copyrights.

“To check the battery health, press and hold the status button on the battery charge gauge for at least 3 seconds. If no lights appear, the battery is in good condition, and more than 80 percent of its original charge capacity remains. Each light represents incremental degradation. If five lights appear, less than 60 percent of the charge capacity remains, and you should consider replacing the battery.”

When I perform the status check on both the old and the new battery, I am getting the same response. I press the status button and get 5 lights, hold for 3 secs, all lights go off and then 5 lights come on for about 3 secs then all lights go off.

Does the second flash of 5 lights mean both batteries are bad? or just an indicator that that status test is occurring?

By: mike

mike — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:10:20 +0000

@Tommy: Thanks for posting your comment.

By: Tommy

Tommy — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:34:45 +0000

Hey J,

You asked for recommendations on a third party D620 battery. I got a 9 cell one from notebookbattery.com about 6 months or so back, and am really happy with it. I even dug out the page for you where I got it:
http://www.notebookbattery.com/Dell-Latitude-D620/c23_193/index.html

Cheers,
Tom

By: Erin

Erin — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 07:19:58 +0000

I’m a college student trying to replace my Latitude D620 for minimal cost. Any suggestions? I’m TERRIFIED of buying a 3rd party battery in case it messes up my computer and they won’t fix it cuz I used foreign parts in it. But those seem to be the cheapest. Has anyone tried them? Comments? Suggestions? Your help is MUCH appreciated

By: j

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:26:59 +0000

Any good recommendations on a third-party battery? Like other posters, the 18 month old 9-cell battery for the 620 only lasts a few minutes. I figure there’s no point getting another Dell “genuine part” at “genuine prices” when I already know what the quality will be.

By: John

John — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:34:46 +0000

Mogus -

Any word on battery replacement you used? Manufacturer? website available? etc …

By: mike

mike — Tue, 20 May 2008 20:38:30 +0000

@mogus: Report back with which model you ordered and how it worked out for you.

By: mogus

mogus — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:14:08 +0000

has anyone tried ordering third party manufactured batteries instead? maybe they won’t have the same issues… (ordering one now!)

By: mike

mike — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:02:41 +0000

I haven’t done any research into whether there is a *different* battery available, as mentioned in the post, Dell did replace mine which has been fine since. For systems that are still in warranty, I would check on the warranty implications of third-party batteries before buying one.

By: Bob

Bob — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:25:09 +0000

My Dell Latitude D620 is suffering from the same issue with terrible battery life, but I’m unfortunately just out of warranty. What do you all recommend as a suitable replacement that one wouldn’t have to replace again in another year?

By: Drew

Drew — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 15:01:14 +0000

I just got the “You should replace your battery” and I think I have the 9-cell (I paid for the extra on the phone). I got my Inspiron 1501 about 13 months ago. The guy on the phone said the 9 cell would increase my life from 1-2 hours to 4-5 hours. Now 13 months later I get about 2-3 hours. Why would I get this message if my battery is still OK?

By: A.J.

A.J. — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 14:25:12 +0000

I’ve also had the D620 battery problem. I bought mine new in August 2006 with a 9-cell battery. I started getting the “your-battery-is-at-the-end-of-its-life” pop-up message less than a year later. I replaced the battery last May (2007), and now (January-February 2008), I’m getting the “your-battery-needs-to-be-replaced” pop-up.” The battery used to run for hours; now it runs for about 40 minutes and then shuts down with no warning. I’ll try to get it replaced but I’m not optimistic.

By: David

David — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 01:01:27 +0000

I’ve had this same problem as well, with a D620 from July 2006. I had the 9 cell battery, and got a replacement in December 2006 because the Dell battery health meter reported that it should be replaced. My second battery was great until just recently. It only lasts 2 hours, and shows 4 lights on the battery health meter. It’s pretty disappointing that I’m going to have to shell out money for a new battery, since I’m pretty sure I’m out of warranty.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 19:37:25 +0000

I also have a 9 Cell battery and right after a year the battery will say 100% and after a bootup and 10-15 mins of use it dies. Dell will not replace either.

You know it’s sad when your other laptops being 10+ years old still run on the same batteries and last longer than the “NEW” technology!!

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:47:15 +0000

Hi guys,

Actually also have the same problem, I have D620 from July 2006 and uuring this period I replaced my battery once around May after experiencing almost dead battery (last no more than 20 minutes!). Now the performance of the second battery started to fall down from 2hrs 45mins to not more than 50 minutes. Some of my colleagues at work didnt experience this problem with their D620s (Wonder why?!). I was thinking that it might be getting worse cause am using a docking station. but as I can see that all of u guys suffer the same problem.

Joe

PS: I really have to mention and appreciate Toshiba battery! My brother has Toshiba Satelitte A-Something, his battery used to last up to 4 hrs for more than 3 years!!

By: mike

mike — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 06:42:17 +0000

@Sean: Thanks for the comment, it sounds like you need replacements. You know what to do. Hopefully once the returns start piling up they’ll change to a new battery model.

By: Sean

Sean — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 03:40:24 +0000

I bought two 85Wh D620 batteries last May with my new laptop. The batteries seemed pretty stable for 3 months or so … then they seem to go down hill quickly … Both batteries have had five death lights since Jan. They use to last > 4 hours now they are down to about 40 minutes.

By: Bulbous, Not Tapered » Blog Archive » Fedora Core 6 on a Dell Latitude D620

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 06:15:32 +0000

[...] CISSP Certification Poor Battery Life on Latitude D620 [...]

By: mike

mike — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 03:17:31 +0000

@Dawid: Thanks for your comment. Hopefully the third try will be the charm.

By: evad (Dawid Lorenz)

evad (Dawid Lorenz) — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 22:59:31 +0000

My first 6-cell battery lost ~40% of its capacity ‘just like that’ after around 3 months of using it. Second battery haven’t lost much capacity (around ~15% according to GNOME Power Manager), but its performance was still poor, giving me less than 2.5h away from AC adapter. I’m getting third battery replacement this Tuesday (6/03), as soon as I could be able to check its performance, I’ll post some notes on my website. Stay tuned. :)