Battery Inspiron 6000 question

[Bryan C]

How do I bench test a Dell Inspiron 6000 battery?
Is there a diagram of the battery pinouts?

I was given a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop that had some spyware & useless security apps that turned it into a doorstop. When I persisted in attempting to power up... Windows started, ran, and would hang. It had an OS problem and a good battery.

It booted from the battery. Battery was okay. It would also boot from the AC Adapter. I took the battery out while I continued my scrutiny of the laptop. I was able to run the Dell diagnostics from its partition. No hardware problems.

I performed an incident-free reinstall from the OEM Dell disk.

I replaced the battery. The battery now appears to have -zero- charge and it will NOT charge. The little battery light comes on (flutters briefly, green --- not yellow or orange --- green) when I do a restart or shutdown but no idiot light activity otherwise.

Battery has a guage showing level of charge: -zero charge- on indicator.

I downloaded all the Dell drivers from Dell in hopes that the power/charger issue would go away. No improvement.

I did it a second time on a new, larger hard drive, following the specific installation order specified on the Dell site --- fresh install, different hard drive --- No change.

Dell recommends a BIOS grade. Catch 22 is that you have to have at least a 10% battery charge to flash the BIOS

I don't want to buy a replacement battery if the motherboard is faulty.
The battery had a good charge when I took it out and set it aside for about 36 hours. It was okay. I can't believe it simply died in its sleep there on my old wooden desk.

So... the question is

How do I bench test a Dell Inspiron battery

 

[Bryan C]

Nobody seems interested in my questions.

I guess I needed a more jarring headline.

The battery has 8 recessed contacts that are fairly inaccessable; so, I stuck bits of foil into the slots and checked for signs of life with a multi-meter.

With 8 contacts I assume that there'd be a (-) and (+) in there someplace and I got -zero- voltage readings.

 

[frozenlead]

If your battery is truly dead, it follows that it has zero potential - so your multimeter readings are justified.

When you booted from the battery before, was it just for a few minutes? I ask this because we need to know if the battery was actually in good working condition - simply being able to turn on the computer for a bit with no AC power does not mean your battery is good.

Can you explain the LED indicator when you insert the battery better? Manufacturers usually use these as diagnostic codes to help you figure out what's wrong.

 

[Bryan C]

I bought a replacement battery & it appears to be charging and discharging normally. So, I didn't learn how to accurately benchtest that battery or AC charger. And, I didn't find a pinout diagram for either one. But thanks for trying to help Mr Frozenlead. At least my gamble paid off... it wasn't the motherboard. I

will say this: Dell has all the drivers, apps, Bios revision, manuals... everything I needed online; plus, helpful info.

It can take hours to swap out a hard drive from an iBook and careful attention to all the various metric screws and all. It takes 30 seconds to remove and replace a hard drive on all the Dell laptops I've repaired. I've been an Apple enthusiast since 1985. I'm not so very positive and enthusiastic lately. I kind of like Dell's designs.