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My sister-in-law brought her laptop to me see if it had a virus and to find a battery for it because the one in it will no longer charge. The laptop had a rouge anti-virus trojan installed. I got rid of that, I think. I'm going to recommend that she back up all of her pics and documents just in case it comes back.

Windows Vista and the Bios is showing no battery present. I tried cleaning the contacts but that didn't do anything. When you press the battery level on the battery itself, all lights come on. If you unplug the AC, it turns off. I'm guessing the battery is indeed bad but before I tell her she needs to spend $155 +shipping (Dell's price, I haven't look around yet) on a new battery, is there anything else I should check?

If it's one of the batteries with a little LED bar graph on it, that's usually a good indicator of it's condition and it sounds like it's a good battery. However if you know the battery is more than 3 years old, chances are it's dead.

Have you tried booting into the BIOS menu to check the battery status? That will tell you if the laptop is communicating with the battery and should also show you a charge meter.

No need to spend that kind of money. I have had very good luck buying Dell laptop batteries through Amazon. Just make sure the battery and the seller have good reviews. For $30 it's worth buying a battery to find out.

It may be a problem with the internal power or charging circuit in the laptop. I have also seen this happen with a defective power supply very often. That should be a standard PA-12 PSU that Dell uses on 75% of it's laptops. You can find those cheap on Amazon also, and most Mom & Pop PC shops will have a few used ones on the shelf that they can try to see if it solves the problem.

Quick search: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss? ... ll&x=0&y=0

Thanks FP

I just tried booting into the Bios and it show no battery detected. I was wrong about being able to unplug the AC and the computer shutting off. When I unplug the adapter, the computer will continue to run but the battery indicator on the laptop itself turns red.

I'm hoping that whatever circuit inside the battery that tells the computer its status is bad. It is more than 3 years old.

I'm going to order a new battery for it and see what happens. Thanks for the links FP.