An orange Light keeps on blinking!

This has happened to me twice over the past few years, the first time was because my battery was simply dead and needed replacing, however the second time I thought it was the same problem but it was just a bad connection.

First turn off the computer and take out the battery. There is a self-test button on the battery that will light up several green lights when pushed if the battery is ok. If that is ok, blow out any dust in the battery compartment and make sure the connections are clean and push the battery FIRMLY back into the compartment. After I gave it a good solid push back in and powered up, the orange light went away and it's been fine for months now.

Give that a go, but normally though the orange light when on AC power means you need a new battery, especially if the self-test button doesn't show a healthy battery. And unfortunately those things aren't cheap!

thanks for the quick responce!  i'll try that now!

shadow

Its your battery, I have the same problem, Im using 2 batteries in my 8200, one of them is new, one of them is old, the light will only blink when using the bad battery. So u can either keep the battery or get a new one

I pressed the button on teh battery and the green lights light up fine and i tried blowing in the clear the dust, and i still get that orange light!  does anyone else know what could be wrong?  Thank you!

thanks for the replies, yeah, i'm gonna get a new battery, the thing is that i just got this computer last august, do you guys know that it could be becauset that when my comp is at home, i just leave it plugged in all the time, could that possibly have some affect on it?  Thanks for all the help!

Shadow

I'm not at home right now so I can't do the self-test on my battery now, but I don't remember it alternating between 4 green lights and 2 green lights. I think if you have a healthy battery it should just light up all the green lights and then after a few seconds all turn off. (i.e no alternating)

If it's doing anything else I'd say you need a new battery.

If you've given it a good solid push back in and it's still showing the orange light blinking, it's probably dead. They often only last bewteen 1 and 2 years, especially if you use it often without AC power, so if you've had it more than a year it's not that uncommon.

no I believe leaving it plugged in on AC power should actually extend the life of the battery if anything.

8 months is a pretty short life-time for a battery - I've had my current one since Sep 2002 (although as I said, it showed the orange lights once, and pushing it back in hard fixed it)

sounds a bit strange that it would die so soon, but I'm no expert.

 

Call Dell Customer Service.  I believe batteries are covered under a 1 year warranty.

Whe you press the button on the battery, it shows the available charge. If you hold it for at least 3 seconds, the lights should go off after 3 seconds. If not, the battery shows how much capacity it has lost compared to a new one. So if 2 lights go on, the battery isn't anymore in good condition. As you are still under warranty, call Dell to send you a new one. It shouldn't cost anything.

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@aussiegeek wrote:

no I believe leaving it plugged in on AC power should actually extend the life of the battery if anything.

8 months is a pretty short life-time for a battery - I've had my current one since Sep 2002 (although as I said, it showed the orange lights once, and pushing it back in hard fixed it)

sounds a bit strange that it would die so soon, but I'm no expert.

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aussiegeek and original poster

Leaving the notebook plugged into the AC and leaving the battery in ALL the time will shorten the life span of the battery. You have two options.

1. Disconnect it from the AC power when your not using the notebook.

2. Remove the battery when you're not using it.

ok thanks for the tip, although it's still a bit strange because I have mine plugged in to AC power ALL the time and with the battery in, and I have had my battery since around Sep 2002 and it's still going fine. I use my laptop for several hours every day too.

also taking the battery out is a pain because if I accidentally knock the power cord or something I lose whatever I was doing. (I'm clumsy :-))

i really think less than 1 year is not acceptable regardless of usage, and you should try to get it replaced under warranty if possible.

 

just re-read your posts and noted one thing:

my laptop is plugged in to AC power all the time when it is on - however I DON'T have it plugged in when it is switched off. (i.e after I shutdown, I pull the power cord out from the wall).

 

I don't agree that a battery takes much damage if the PC is plugged in all the time. My father has an old Latitude Xpi (February 1997), and during the last 5 years, it was plugged on AC all the time an turned on 24/24. It is the first battery and it has never been taken out. Today, it still has enough capacity to power the Latitude around 1 to 1.5 hours.
Batteries usually loose their capacity by using it or after some years. Older batteries lasted longer because they didn't have the capacity today's batteries have so they were better built. The batteries that are available today often are of a poor quality, some of them even fail after a year (Dell's usually last 2 years at least).

Thanks aussiegeek for rereading my post.

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@HMKrieps wrote:
I don't agree that a battery takes much damage if the PC is plugged in all the time. My father has an old Latitude Xpi (February 1997), and during the last 5 years, it was plugged on AC all the time an turned on 24/24. It is the first battery and it has never been taken out. Today, it still has enough capacity to power the Latitude around 1 to 1.5 hours.
Batteries usually loose their capacity by using it or after some years. Older batteries lasted longer because they didn't have the capacity today's batteries have so they were better built. The batteries that are available today often are of a poor quality, some of them even fail after a year (Dell's usually last 2 years at least).

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Well that may be true but as you stated you leave it running all the time. When the unit is running it give very little power to charge the battery, that is why it takes much longer to recharge the battery when it is running than it does if it's powered down. The bad thing to do is let the battery be charged all the time.

If you simply do a search on google for the best way to extend notebook battery life you will come up with pages of info.

Also with the new batteries, Lithium ion, it's not good to run them down all the way. It's best to recharge them when they reach the 50% mark. Running them all the way down then recharging them will shorten the life span.

As to your assumption that older batteries are built better. I have NO idea where that comes from. Most of the older batteries are/were nickel metal hydride which didn't last that long and put out less power than what is needed to run the notebooks of today. If these batteries were better than the Li-ion ones of today why did they stop using them.

I know this for a fact. I have a old IBM TP i1400 with a P-266 CPU and a small screen, and with a brand new battery it will only go for 1-1.5 hours under normal use.