Dell XPS 15 9520 Battery Replacement

Bought this laptop about 3 years ago or so. It has a 86 whr. When I do the battery test, it shows design capacity at 84,292 mWh and full charge capacity at 44,688 mWh. That means I have barely over 50% battery health right? So this should be replaced? I read online if it's less than 70% battery health is when you should get a new battery? When they calculate 70%, they just devide the full charge capacity and design capacity right?


Is this normal for my laptop to be at this much capacity after 3 years? I did read laptop batteries should be replaced every 2 to 3 years. I mainly use this laptop as a desktop and it's plugged in almost all the time. I have it connected to 2 external monitors. So the laptop is charged to 100%. I never did the thing where you leave it charged at 80% max though. The other thing is throughout these years, I basically leave my laptop turned on the entire 24 hours and having it plugged in but locking it. So if you want to use it, you have to enter the Windows password to use it.


For someone that use it as desktop replacement, I assume you don't need a battery replacement right? My issue though is even though I use it as a desktop replacement with 2 external monitors, my issue is when a power out happens, then my laptop doesn't last that long. I did a few tests and it seems my laptop battery lasts anywhere from 1 hour to 2.5 hours at the absolute max. It would last at most 2.5 hours if I have it on battery saver and idle with the screen turned on. It's more like 2 hours I would say. Now if I use the laptop as normal, I would say it last 1 hour to 1.5 hours at the absolutely max which isn't much. Would you say getting a battery replacement is good or not?


The other issue is using it without my external monitors is very annoying. What I do online, if a power outage happens, using my laptop just by itself is not that good as I need external monitors. I probably have to buy a power station so that way when a power outage happens, then I can get both power on my laptop and monitors. Have a 32' 4k monitor and 24' 1920x1200 though the bigger monitor is the most important.


If a power outage happens and I'm not doing my normal thing, it isn't that big of a deal. I still have over an hour of battery though. So based on this, should I get a battery replacement or not? How hard is it to replace the battery? I did bought a battery replacement for my old dell XPS 15 9550 years ago and did the replacement and had issues. It was like blinking orange and yellow lights but eventually that issue got resolved. This battery replacement is simple I assume for most people? I assume it's very similar to the XPS 15 9550. My main concern is doing damage to it and I don't really want to bring it to a repair shop and pay another $50 or so for something that probably is simple to do but I kind of don't want to open my laptop. Would been nice if battery replacement was easy for laptops like back in the day where you just pull out the battery from the back and just put in the new one like that without any tools of any sort but that hasn't been the case in a long time.

My previous XPS was bought I believe as 9 years ago or so. I bought a new battery replacement for that older XPS 15 9550 I believe in 2020 or something and installed it myself but I had lot of issues doing it but then it worked. I no longer use that laptop anymore and bought an XPS 15 9520 3 years ago.


I want to know if I should replace the XPS 15 9520 battery or not? The thing is I don't usually use the battery by itself unplugged. I mainly use it like a desktop with 2 external monitors. So the only time I am concerned of XPS laptop battery is power outage. But getting a new battery means at most 1.5 hours extra battery at the absolute max right? Thing is I need backup power on my external monitors so it seems like a power station is what I should buy and not bother with the laptop battery right? If there is no power outage, there is nothing I do on the XPS laptop where I need a lot of battery on the laptop.


I always have laptop plugged in 100%. I notice in dell power manager, you could actually limit it to whatever percentage you want for start charging below and at above.

Would it help my laptop if I make the stop charging above 80%? Or it isn't going to help much since my laptop battery is at 50% capacity? Dell does say my battery health is good though when I check the settings? Why would they say that when I have


Design Capacity 84,292 mWh
Full charge capacity at 44,688 mWh



Isn't my battery a bit over 50% capacity so shouldn't this be bad? Dell shows battery health as good so I don't know why it shows that.


The other thing is what is the proper way to do this? Wait until your laptop battery is what percentage till you do this? I went to charge my laptop when it was at 60% or or so and made the start charging at or below at 20% and stop charging at or above 80% but it seemed to make the 20% back to 50%? The 80% stayed the same.


At the moment, it's charged at 80% now. Would that even my help my laptop battery from now on or it doesn't? Should I just to back to how I always had it or not? The only time I should leave it at 100% is when I'm doing my thing right where if a power outage happens, well that extra 20% of battery is going to help? Otherwise, just leave it charging at 80%?

Back at it again are we?

The last time I posted this, I believe it still had 75% battery health if you divide it. Now it's like 50%. During that whole time and since I got laptop, always had it plugged to 100% battery and rarely had it on power unless a power outage. I never did the charging to 80% thing.


Would doing that 80% thing still help now or not that much? I read people say if you do that from the start, you will use very little battery capacity?


I'm curious if it's worth for me to replace the laptop battery because if I need to use it, I need Backup power for my external monitors. So it would seem better to just buy power station and forget about this laptop battery replacement right?

Replace the battery if you want the unit to be portable.

If you are just going to have it plugged in and you want external monitors powered during an outage, you probably want a UPS instead. Keep in mind, UPS's aren't designed to run equipment for hours on end....they are meant to hold up the system long enough to save what you are doing and shut down. In many cases, there is software that you can install to make your system shutdown automatically after it detects it's been on battery for say 2 minutes. Your actual runtime will depend upon your power draw and how big of a UPS you get. For example, my gaming PC draws WAYYYYY more power than my Mac Mini. I can run my mac mini for a much longer period of time on the same UPS.

Thanks for the response. The thing is I rarely use the laptop by itself. If I do, I almost always have it plugged in.


The thing is I mentioned a while back that I play online poker on my laptop and that is the primary purpose on the laptop. So when I play, I have it connected to 2 external monitors and plugged in all the time. So if a power outage happens, then I have to manually pull out the monitor cables from my laptop, or else my laptop isn't going to show anything on the screen. So that takes a minute or so at least. Then everything Is on my xps 15.6' laptop screen. I then have to connect to my iPhone data as well if power is out, my internet is out. Internet is never that big of an issue if it goes out because I use my iPhone as a hotspot. The issue is my laptop and 2 external monitors.


I have a Cyberpower 1500 VA UPS bought years ago but the battery went bad years ago. So I'm using it as a surge protector the whole time. I read even if I buy the replacement batteries for it... I need 2 batteries for this specific UPS, I probably can't get more than 45 minutes at the most if I connect my xps to it and 2 external monitors? One is 32' 4k monitor and I think it draws 60 watts. The other is a 24' 1920x1200 monitor and I assume it might draw 45 watts. Then you have my laptop which draws a certain amount of watts.


The issue is when this happens, I'm on my laptop playing the rest of the way until the power comes back. I usually immediately connect my Dell PW7018LC that is 18000mah powerbank to it first. Then once the Dell powerbank goes to 0% which takes 55 minutes or so, I then connect my Anker 737 powebank to it. Then once that runs out which takes about 1 hour 5 minutes, all I have is my laptop battery. So with my laptop battery, I have at most 1.5 hours. It's probably a little over an hour at the most. Last time I did this and think it last 1 hour 15 minutes or so.

Well, sounds like if you need stuff to run even longer, you might want to attach a portable generator to your house, or better yet a whole home generator that will keep everything up.

My main issue is when I'm playing on the laptop, it's extremely hard because I play lot of tables. So I need at least my 32' 4k monitor to look at the tables. I prefer both monitors but just the 32' 4k is fine when a power outage like this happens. The thing is I should at least get UPS replacement batteries so I don't have any downtime when a power outage happens right? Then it last my laptop and monitors maybe 30 minutes? Seems like UPS and then when I have a short 5 minute break, then switch to the power station? The thing is if I have any downtime, I lose money since my cards are folded automatically and my chips are taken away from me. So whenever this happens now, it takes me a few minutes to unplug my cables from my laptop and then connect my personal hotspot. Does that make sense?


The thing is people suggested buying power station and that seems to be the ideal solution for this? So buy like a 1000 wh power station? Thing is where I"m at, it would actually cost twice as much compared to the US. Electronics there are so expensive. So with that, I can use my laptop and 2 monitors for a good amount of hours right?


So my thought on this is even if I buy a replacement battery for my xps 15 9520, it doesn't really solve my issue much because in situations like this, I need backup power for at least one of the monitors right? The thing is if I'm on laptop battery power, I try to make it low power mode and dim the screen as well when I'm on the laptop only. The other conflicting issue is if I'm not on high performance mode, when I'm playing online poker, there is even more lag issues which is worst.


The thing is assuming I am not playing online poker, my laptop battery is fine as I have 1.5 hours on it. I would have another 2 hours backup in addition total if you count the Dell PW7018LC and the Anker 737 so that would be a total of around 3.5 hours of backup.


The thing is for this situation, is it a waste buying a dell battery replacement for it? Might as well just use that money towards a power station right? The thing is if I'm not playing online poker, I don't even need that much battery. As bad as the battery is now for the laptop, even having 1 powerbank is enough for what I would do if I'm not playing online poker.


The only thing I could see this Dell replacement battery being useful in my situation is well... you are using the laptop battery and not wasting any of the UPS or power station battery for about 1.5 hours extra? I feel like a new battery would give me an extra 1.5 hours at the most on my laptop. So that way you save extra power for your monitors?

Going by your past post, what you need is to be serious when you ask for help. We have been there and done that with you in the past.

I like to know if getting a Dell battery replacement is worth it or not in my situation. It doesn't seem to be the case right? Power station is the most important here along with UPS battery replacement right?

OEM laptop batteries never last long. After a few years you probably won't be able to buy the original OEM battery and most third party replacements are poor quality Chinese batteries.