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#1
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How interchangeable are laptop batteries?
Some web sites are now selling a 4400mAH 312-0028 battery as a
replacement for a 3600mAH 1691P with a BIOS upgrade CD. Has anyone tried this with an older Dell? Dell's web site does not list this battery as being compatible with my Inspiron 4000 model PP01L. I have AC charger PA-6/9364U if it matters. Dell's web site says the 312-0028 is for the lattitude C640/C840 only. The resellers claim many more models, including mine. |
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#3
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William wrote:
Does that mean they are mucking about with the BIOS in order to enable this battery to work with this machine? Is this a real Dell battery or an aftermarket one? I asked for a replacement battery for my Latitude CPi R400GT about a year ago. It comes with a firmware upgrade and diagnostics CD. Upgrading firmware is not required for using a new battery, though, but A14 has some improvements in the battery charging process. Dell is getting very restrictive about battery and charger compatibility lately... I understand why Dell is getting very restrictive on this matter! :-) The question of the original poster remains, though... Best regards, Igor. |
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William wrote:
Does that mean they are mucking about with the BIOS in order to enable this battery to work with this machine? Is this a real Dell battery or an aftermarket one? Dell is getting very restrictive about battery and charger compatibility lately... I think that companies should have gotten very restrictive years ago. Back in 1999 when I had my Toshiba Stallite Pro 445CDT its charger died on it, they sent me a replacement for another model that was supposed to be compatable. Fried the charching system and the battery. Replacement battery fried the damn motherboard. I was ****ed. |
#5
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Some web sites are now selling a 4400mAH 312-0028
battery as a replacement for a 3600mAH 1691P with a BIOS upgrade CD. Does that mean they are mucking about with the BIOS in order to enable this battery to work with this machine? I've bought a couple of the 4400mah batteries to replace the 1691P, 3149C, and 75UYF batteries I've had in my CPiA366XT and three C600's. I frequently swap these batteries around between laptops, and have not noticed any problems in the 6-9 months I've been using them. The bios update CD that came with these was merely a collection of the latest Dell updates for the various machines this battery fit. These were the exact same flash bios updates available on the Dell site. IOW, if you have the latest bios version already, you don't need the CD. FTR, I didn't use the CD on any of my 4 laptops. If you look at the update history for a given bios, it's common to see revisions pertaining to battery charging, so my take on this is that the battery supplier just wants to urge buyers to be using a sufficiently up-to-date bios version. For example, the latest CPiA bios is A15, but A13 was the last to change anything related to battery, so I think that means A13 is okay but if you're using A12 or earlier you'd want to update. |
#6
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Dan Goodell wrote:
The bios update CD that came with these was merely a collection of the latest Dell updates for the various machines this battery fit. These were the exact same flash bios updates available on the Dell site. IOW, if you have the latest bios version already, you don't need the CD. FTR, I didn't use the CD on any of my 4 laptops. The CD is labelled "BIOS Update", indeed. But it has too diagnostics software. It is sometimes useful even if the machine is running the latest firmware revisions. Don't drop that CD! :-) Igor. |
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