Laptop Battery Replacement?

newmann · Feb 8, 2025

Have a Dell XPS 15 9520. Had this laptop for over 2.5 years and am still using the same battery. My laptop is plugged in almost always 100%. It is connected to 2 external monitors. Not only that, for quite some time, I have left my laptop on 24/7. I just lock it at night. I have bitlocker as well.

The only time when my laptop is not plugged in is if I power off my laptop which is rare or if during the night, my UPS powers off by itself... the battery is bad but I'm using the UPS as a surge protector... so when in the morning, either my laptop is very low battery or it shut off by itself because the power went out of the UPS.

It does seem if you are using a laptop while plugged into 2 external monitors but charger not plugged in... battery wears out much faster... can someone confirm this?

I recall people mention you should change your laptop battery every 2 years right? But that's if you use your laptop a lot? I use my laptop all day and it's on 24/7 while plugged in. It is charged at 100% as well so it isn't charged at 80%.

How do I check what is my laptop battery health? It is a 86 whr battery. When I do the laptop battery test, what should it show where I should then replace my battery? The thing is I almost always have my laptop plugged in when using it and rarely do I use it unplugged. If people use their laptop as a desktop replacement which is pretty much what I do, then you don't really need to replace the battery right? However, if there is power outage, I want my laptop to have a good amount of battery though. So you should always replace your laptop battery every 3 years at the minimum? Of course it seems like people say most people don't use a laptop more than 5 years it seems. My old Dell XPS 15 9550, I used it for like 6 years I believe. I had to replace the battery few times I recalled.

rk911 · Feb 8, 2025

newmann said:
Have a Dell XPS 15 9520. Had this laptop for over 2.5 years and am still using the same battery. My laptop is plugged in almost always 100%. It is connected to 2 external monitors. Not only that, for quite some time, I have left my laptop on 24/7. I just lock it at night. I have bitlocker as well.

The only time when my laptop is not plugged in is if I power off my laptop which is rare or if during the night, my UPS powers off by itself... the battery is bad but I'm using the UPS as a surge protector... so when in the morning, either my laptop is very low battery or it shut off by itself because the power went out of the UPS.

It does seem if you are using a laptop while plugged into 2 external monitors but charger not plugged in... battery wears out much faster... can someone confirm this?

I recall people mention you should change your laptop battery every 2 years right? But that's if you use your laptop a lot? I use my laptop all day and it's on 24/7 while plugged in. It is charged at 100% as well so it isn't charged at 80%.

How do I check what is my laptop battery health? It is a 86 whr battery. When I do the laptop battery test, what should it show where I should then replace my battery? The thing is I almost always have my laptop plugged in when using it and rarely do I use it unplugged. If people use their laptop as a desktop replacement which is pretty much what I do, then you don't really need to replace the battery right? However, if there is power outage, I want my laptop to have a good amount of battery though. So you should always replace your laptop battery every 3 years at the minimum? Of course it seems like people say most people don't use a laptop more than 5 years it seems. My old Dell XPS 15 9550, I used it for like 6 years I believe. I had to replace the battery few times I recalled.

Dell Battery Health Check

krism · Feb 8, 2025

yes,no,yes,maybe.
If your laptop battery runs down every night, yes, it probably needs replacing, IF IF you will ever need to use it without a power supply.

You could separate it from external monitor and any attachments you wouldn't use if you were using the laptop separately and run it and see how long it runs and see if that is satisfactory. You will have to change a few settings in Power, etc as otherwise it will just go to sleep and you won't learn anything.

Most cafe's etc have a mains outlet and I always carry cables and adapters with me for whatever electronics I might need (for me it's mostly for phone, watch, etc as I do not ever take my laptop w me). YMMV! hth.

starchase · Feb 8, 2025

The Dell I bought for my wife is a different model so a comparison between yours and mine won't match up, and it doesn't stay on as much as you are keeping yours but it gets a good amount of use, but you may find this story instructive nonetheless.

Dell laptop purchased 12/3/2019 Model:I7591-7483BLK-PUS 2-in-1 (7000 Series) 15.6 inch 2-IN-1
4K Ultra HD Touch-Screen, 3840 x 2160, Intel Core i7 10510U, 16GB RAM DDR4 SDRAM 2400 megahert (2 slots), dedicated graphics Nvidia GeForce MX250 2 GB Graphics, PCIe 512GB Intel SSD + 32GB Optane Memory, wireless-AX & Bluetooth - Black; Internal Battery: 68wh, Type 4VGMP 4 cell

12/1/2024 bought replacement from Dell For a total of $106.99 as the original wasn't holding a charge, but turned out it was for a 3-cell 51 Wh battery which the Service Manual showed. I returned it for credit to Dell.

Bought a replacement battery on 12/5/2024 from Amazon, $35.59. But this one was the correct battery but a poor knock-off and thus defective (wouldn't hold a charge). Returned for credit.

Finally 12/10/24 bought correct battery from Amazon, $59.99 plus tax, total $64.19: DELL type 4GVMP 7.6V 68Wh 4-Cell For Dell Latitude 5400, Latitude 5500, Precision 3540, Precision 3550 , Inspiron 7590 2-in-1,Inspiron 7591 2-in-1,Inspiron 7791 2-in-1. It is still going strong.

Dell's Service Manual for my machine had the wrong battery pictured for my 7591 2n1 - it showed a 3 cell battery instead of the 4 cell. I would have known this if I had opened up the laptop and looked at it but I trusted the Service Manual which showed how to replace it! The original battery was marked Type 4GVMP and was a 68 Wh battery. So when you do buy a replacement battery double check you are getting the same battery the machine came with.

krism · Feb 8, 2025

Yes, I have seen trusted service manuals be wrong, as well, though I think part of the problem is that these laptops are sold in 5-10 different versions with different parts. Yes, take it apart to be sure!

K7MEM · Feb 9, 2025

I have a pretty old HP Laptop but as long as it continues to update, I will keep it and use it. My laptop is regularly away from a power source, so I keep an eye on the power. I have it set so that when I close the lid, it goes into hibernate. For me, this works out well because, all of my running applications are saved. When I open the lid, and hit the power button, everything is restored to before I closed the lid. I can leave it for long periods of time, in hibernate, without any noticeable power drain.

In the time I have owned this laptop, I have had to change the battery twice. Both times, I replaced it because it wasn't lasting very long, when it was not plugged into a power source. The battery replacement only takes about 10 minutes and is not very expensive. I replaced the battery on my prior laptop also. When I replaced my last battery, I noticed that the old battery had a very noticeable bulge and was getting very warm during operation away from the power source. The battery would always charge to 100%, but just would not last very long.

Steve C · Feb 9, 2025

If your battery is a few years old then it will probably be hard to find an OEM replacement and all the other choices are cheap Chinese tat which won't last long in my experience.

hsehestedt · Feb 9, 2025

With proper care. Lithium Ion batteries can last a really long time. I have an HP laptop (an Elitebook 4070p) from 2012 with the original battery and that battery is still going strong! I also have a Samsung phone from 2018 still working great. I think that the phone is even more impressive because it remains turned on 24 x 7.

But I get that kind of life only because I take what may be unusual measures for some.

On the phone, I try to always keep the level of charge between 20% and 80%. In other words, I do not charge it above 80% and don't let it get below 20%. Once every 2 months or so I will fully charge it and then let it run until empty to recalibrate the phones measurement of the battery capacity. Also, if I know that I will be away from a charger and using the phone particularly heavily one day, then I will charge to 100% but that is the exception.

On the laptop, I have to admit that it is rarely used. So I keep the battery at about 60% for storage.

Lithium Ion batteries are put under the greatest stress when the charge level is left very low or very high for extended periods. For example if you fully charge and leave the battery at 100% for an extended period, that definitely contributes to a lower overall lifespan.

You may notice that a lot of devices these days have the ability to set a limit on how much to charge a battery. This is precisely the reason why - it extends the life of the battery.

Of course, there are always exceptions. I had another HP laptop where the battery would no longer hold more than a few minutes worth of charge after only about 4 years.

kelper · Feb 9, 2025

My old HP Mini has a detachable battery. I replaced it with one from eBay. The battery works fine except that I often see on the battery icon that it is plugged ii, but not charging. If I pull out the battery and put it back in while the charger is connected, the battery starts charging. This is just a minor inconvenience. It was halp the price of the genuine battery.

newmann · Feb 11, 2025

Battery Report shows

Design Capacity 84,292 mWh
Full Charge Capacity 62,027 mWh

Had this laptop for 2.5 years or so. When I look at the history of the mWh, I notice it first went down like 6 months later and then progressively went down. So 25% of the battery has worn out after 2.5 years? Is that good? Now would it need replacement now or not?

Someone mentioned you are suppose to charge your laptop to 100%. Then let it drop down to 20% before you charge it again. Isn't that how you make your battery worst? I asked this a while back and recall people said that would drain the battery even faster? People said it's better to have it charged 100% all the time than that... do most agree?

The best would be charge it to only 80% max only and have it charged all the time? The thing is my laptop is turned on 24/7 and it's connected to 2 external monitors.

kelper · Feb 11, 2025

That battery wear is normal. If the laptop is always on you don't need the battery to be perfect.

newmann · Feb 13, 2025

The thing is my laptop is plugged in almost always and I rarely use it it unplugged. The thing though is I want a good amount of battery in case of power outage.

But you say 25% battery wear after 2.5 years is good? So it isn't necessary to replace it? How much percent battery wear would you say you have to replace it even if you use it plugged in?

Wynona · Feb 13, 2025

newmann said:
Have a Dell XPS 15 9520. Had this laptop for over 2.5 years and am still using the same battery. My laptop is plugged in almost always 100%. It is connected to 2 external monitors. Not only that, for quite some time, I have left my laptop on 24/7. I just lock it at night. I have bitlocker as well.

The only time when my laptop is not plugged in is if I power off my laptop which is rare or if during the night, my UPS powers off by itself... the battery is bad but I'm using the UPS as a surge protector... so when in the morning, either my laptop is very low battery or it shut off by itself because the power went out of the UPS.

It does seem if you are using a laptop while plugged into 2 external monitors but charger not plugged in... battery wears out much faster... can someone confirm this?

I recall people mention you should change your laptop battery every 2 years right? But that's if you use your laptop a lot? I use my laptop all day and it's on 24/7 while plugged in. It is charged at 100% as well so it isn't charged at 80%.

How do I check what is my laptop battery health? It is a 86 whr battery. When I do the laptop battery test, what should it show where I should then replace my battery? The thing is I almost always have my laptop plugged in when using it and rarely do I use it unplugged. If people use their laptop as a desktop replacement which is pretty much what I do, then you don't really need to replace the battery right? However, if there is power outage, I want my laptop to have a good amount of battery though. So you should always replace your laptop battery every 3 years at the minimum? Of course it seems like people say most people don't use a laptop more than 5 years it seems. My old Dell XPS 15 9550, I used it for like 6 years I believe. I had to replace the battery few times I recalled.

The rule of thumb has been that you need to let your battery run down every so often to keep it healthy. It isn't good to leave it plugged in all the time.

newmann · Feb 13, 2025

How often is that? So wear down to how much percent before plug it back in?

kelper · Feb 13, 2025

It's up to you when to replace a battery. If you get a black out your battery still has enough juice for several hours. What do you need it for? Can you just save your work, check email and then 'sleep' it until the power returns.
I can run my Starlink and a laptop from a car battery. The Starlink needs 67V so I bought a DCDC converter. The laptop need 19V so I got a universal laptop charger that can run from a cigar lighter socket which I have wired to the battery.

hsehestedt · Feb 13, 2025

Wynona said:
The rule of thumb has been that you need to let your battery run down every so often to keep it healthy. It isn't good to leave it plugged in all the time.

Here's the scoop:

It's not great for longevity to leave a LiIon battery at full charge for extended periods of time. This is precisely why many phones, laptops, etc. now have a feature to limit charging to a certain level, for example 80% or 60%. However, this does not mean that you should panic if your device does not have this capability, You could very well still get years out of a battery, it's just likely that you will get a longer lifespan with better care.

As for discharging completely, the only reason to do this is to recalibrate the battery meter in a device. A good way to do this is to charge to 100%, then boot into safe mode, disconnect AC power, and just let it run until the system shuts off.

Note: There are also battery chargers for individual cells like 18650 batteries etc. that have a "storage" function. These will charge the batteries to a preset level, or discharge them down to that level, for best life when keeping batteries in long term storage. A couple of companies that have such chargers are Xtar and ISDT. I'm sure there are others, those just spring to mind right away.

Winuser · Feb 14, 2025

hsehestedt said:
As for discharging completely, the only reason to do this is to recalibrate the battery meter in a device. A good way to do this is to charge to 100%, then boot into safe mode, disconnect AC power, and just let it run until the system shuts off.

In the past I have read post about lithium batteries and they all recommended to never let a lithium battery go completely dead. This was about lithium batteries for cordless tools but I would think the same would go for all lithium batteries.

hsehestedt · Feb 14, 2025

Winuser said:
In the past I have read post about lithium batteries and they all recommended to never let a lithium battery go completely dead. This was about lithium batteries for cordless tools but I would think the same would go for all lithium batteries.

This is true, but the thing to remember is this: Most lithium batteries have a protection circuit built into the battery to prevent them from being discharged too far. As a result the point at which the device being powered by them cuts off is not really when the battery is completely dead. It is a point well before that. In other words, a fully discharged battery is not really fully discharged

.

Note that there are unprotected batteries out there, most notably some individual cells. Unprotected cells are best used in devices that will cut off when the battery voltage drops to a specific level, protected by the device itself.

But for absolute best life trying to keep the charge between approximately 20% and 80% is best.

My daily phone is a Samsung Galaxy Note 9 from 2018. I try to keep it always between 20% and 80% although I do sometimes fall short of that goal. But the battery is still performing great.

Laptop Battery Replacement?

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