# Dell 1735 system cannot communicate with battery



## notonyourtintyp (Jan 18, 2011)

Hi folks,

This may be one of those "now they tell me" problems... but I've got a two year old Dell 1735 Studio that up until two days ago had been doing fine as the desktop system, running off its AC charger most of the time. (It and I do not travel much). Sunday afternoon, I notice the battery status light by the power cord plugin doing 4 quick red flashes, 1 long white. I try unplugging the adapter and the system shuts down hard. Won't boot off battery alone. Plug AC back in, and during first boot screen get the message above, F1, F2, F10 options. So I continue. I try this several times, and 3 out of 5 boots go to Windows 7 just fine, only 2 get hung up during power-up sequence.

The battery status lights on the battery do nothing when pressed -- although once I did get a "10101" indication (on/off...). Powermeter says 0%, but when asked about battery state of health Windows says "cannot communicate with battery."

So, I talk with Dell, and they fiddled around a lot and finally said their diagnostics say it is both the motherboard and the battery. But when I run their newly-installed Dell Support Center tool, while the battery does fail, the system board only shows "RTC Accuracy" test failed. (Real Time Clock, I presume?)

I noticed in the Sticky "Care for Laptops" that its says having the charger always plugged in causes them to die, too. Any known easy way to test it? (And considering it's running the laptop fine right now... why would I think the charger is having a problem?)

Before I spend money on a battery... or on a new motherboard, on Dell's recommendation... any ideas?

Thanks,
Mike


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## MPR (Aug 28, 2010)

Four things I can think of:

AC adapter is not putting out correct DC voltage.
Battery has reached its life limit and will not hold a charge.
Your CMOS battery is dead and needs to be replaced.
The battery charging circuit or part of it (e.g., the charge sensor) has failed.

The quickest and easiest tests would be to see if your charger would work on another Dell laptop and see if your battery can be charged on another Dell with a good charger. If both your charger and battery test good then the Dell rep is probably correct -- the problem is in your system boards.

Edit: You may have lucked out here if the problem is limited to the charging circuit as it is a separate module:

Documentation


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## notonyourtintyp (Jan 18, 2011)

Hi MPR,

Thanks for the quick response. AC Charger output seems nominal, in that right this moment as I type this, it is running the laptop just fine with the battery removed (or with that dead puppy in).

I don't have any access to anyone with another Dell laptop of this sort nearby. I've recently moved to a country where I'm still learning the language; and what I've seen in the computer stores are this year's products, not two-year-old ones, and no Dell to speak of. So that's not really an option for me I'm afraid.

Any ideas on how to test the battery outside of the laptop, other than putting it in another or buying another battery?

thanks!


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## joeten (Dec 4, 2008)

Hi you could try a multimeter


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## MPR (Aug 28, 2010)

Unless the battery can be charged there is really no way to test it. There are external laptop battery chargers available but they probably cost as much as a new battery and/or system repair.

Here is an example:

External Battery Charger (Standalone) for Dell Studio 1735, 1736 series laptop r Laptop Keyboard, Laptop Fan, LCD Inverter, LCD Hinges, External Laptop Battery Charger


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## joeten (Dec 4, 2008)

Hi that model should have a testing unit built in to the battery according to the dell site 
YouTube - How to Check your dell Laptop Battery for charge


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