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Tony_BKK

1 Rookie

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9 Posts

5033

November 24th, 2020 21:00

Swelling batteries on XPS13 9370

I believe this to be a major fault on this laptop and others exibiting the same problem. It is something that should be taken very seriously by Dell and remedied at no cost to the owners.

Dell claims that all batteries of this kind swell up when they are at end of life. So what are they saying? You can expect your premium laptop to be seriously damaged when the battery is at end of life?

How do we determine the end of life of battery? In most cases an end of life battery is over 2 year old and will exhibit poor performance.

In my case my swollen battery is less than 2 years old and is still providing a good 4 hours of solid power under serious work loads!

Perhaps we are to determine an impending end of life by the way the keyboard is arching and the touchpad  popping out?

In reality this is nonsense, had I not done some research I wouldn't have suspected the bulging battery and would have just assumed the keyboard had warped from use.

Out of 20 or so laptops I have owned this is the first and only one that has exhibited this problem.

Unfortunately Dell here is guilty of providing a faulty product which has the potential to be harmful.

Waiting for a fire or an exploding laptop is not the way we should have to determine when to change the battery.

I have laptops with 6 year old batteries in them and they haven't swollen or blown up!

I have owned 3 Dells in my 30 years career as an IT professional (and many other laptops of other makes)

The 1st Dell Inspiron the screen hinge collapsed after 6 months the second XPS15 the hard drive failed after 3 month and now the XPS13 with a potentially explosive battery which may have damaged the laptop.

I do not think there will be a 4th Dell in my life.

2 people also have this problem

ejn63

10 Elder

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26.2K Posts

April 8th, 2022 08:00

If you're going to use the battery swelling as a future purchase criterion, you'll be buying only desktops in the future.

Anything powered by a pouch-cell lithium ion or lithium polymer battery can have the battery swell at end of life.  It doesn't matter if it's a notebook, cell phone, TI calculator, or any other electronic device, and among notebooks, it doesn't matter if the name on the outside is Dell, Apple, HP, Lenovo, Acer or any other.

There are generally warning signs before the swelling becomes significant -- or, simply replace the battery on a 2-year cycle and you'll likely never experience it in the first place.

As with any device, batteries aren't lifetime components -- they are consumables, just like tires, brake pads, and wiper blades on an automobile.

 

U2CAMEB4ME

4 Operator

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6.2K Posts

November 24th, 2020 22:00

Welcome to the Dell Community @Tony_BKK 

Of course Dell would clam that all batteries swell at their end of life.

Because all batteries that are swelling are on their way to end of life.

We all know by now that all Lithium Ion Polymer batteries swell.

So to single out Dell is a little unsubstantiated.

By far Apple batteries are the worst.

ABat.PNG

But Apple recognized this and has the best battery replacement policy!!!

Best regards,

U2

NOTE:

Handling swollen Lithium-ion batteries:

https://www.dell.com/support/manuals/en-us/xps-13-9370-laptop/swollenbattery

Tony_BKK

1 Rookie

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9 Posts

November 24th, 2020 22:00

Thanks for the welcome.

I respectfully disagree. I have never had a laptop battery swell let alone one that damaged a laptop after less than 2 years.

I have a Asus Zenbook with a battery in it that is over 5 years old, it gets used daily, the battery doesn't do much except sit in there. I have an Acer with a battery in it that is 6 years old. It was used until last month. I have two old Sonys I used for many years with dead batteried in them.

Absolutelly none of these laptops showed any problems with swelling batteries. So given that  xps13 is less than 2 years old I would say yes it is indeed fair to single Dell out!

A failing battery should never destroy the appliance it powers in such a short time let alone a top of the range laptop and if it were the case that a laptop needs a battery replacement every year then it should be clearly stated.

Tony_BKK

1 Rookie

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9 Posts

April 10th, 2022 02:00

Exactly because batteries swell at end of life there should be sufficient space tolerance as there is in other laptops to ensure no critical components get damaged. As I said before this laptop is designed to fail.

ejn63

10 Elder

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26.2K Posts

April 10th, 2022 05:00

Which it shares with just about all other systems these days -- Macbooks, Elitebooks, you name it.  They are all designed similarly.

 

Tony_BKK

1 Rookie

 • 

9 Posts

April 11th, 2022 01:00

Let's face it if the swelling of batteries compromises the integrity of the product because of its attempt to be the smallest, slimmest on the market at the very least there should be a clear warning on the laptop like a sticker or something or a large printed note in the manual. That is the honest thing to do.

Tony_BKK

1 Rookie

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9 Posts

April 11th, 2022 01:00

Asus, Acer, Lenovo to name a few and a dozens others are not design to self destroy. 

ejn63

10 Elder

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26.2K Posts

April 11th, 2022 03:00

ferhatknd

1 Message

June 12th, 2022 10:00

image.jpg

 

image.jpg

 

maybe its not clear but the keyboard has waving shape and i cannot close the lid. 

ejn63

10 Elder

 • 

26.2K Posts

June 12th, 2022 11:00

Get the battery out of the system and dispose of it immediately.

Then order a replacement -- the system will run on AC power in the meantime.

 

Tony_BKK

1 Rookie

 • 

9 Posts

June 13th, 2022 11:00

We are told it happens to all the laptops LOL Enjoy your next purchase!
However as others have mentioned right away before it permanently damages the unit or it will become an expensive Frisbee like mine did. 

kashmier

1 Rookie

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4 Posts

January 24th, 2025 00:24

 The laptop was a great choice and I love it but when the swelling started to get bad in the touchpad it had me searching the net for reasons why and I found it to be the battery. After four new batteries I have been running on just the AC for a couple years now. It is a bummer because you can not just move from one outlet to another without loosing a lot of stuff so I have become bed ridden to do my work. I find that to be the best place where I can just leave the thing plugged in and get to it with ease. I hate it (the battery) and wish the company would have spent time trying to make a replacement that would last a few years. The laptop I put together was not cheap and a couple hundred dollars just for new batteries was not figured into my purchasing a better line product. Wouldn't it be a perfect company that just automatically sent back-up batteries every 2 years or as requested. AHHHH .... that would feel so good.  I  also think that if a car can run on batteries the computer companies could invest a bit more into the upgrading of a problem piece of their product to make it last longer. Perfect world, Dell sends out batteries to help out all of those would be repeat customers, just because they are a seriously good company, perhaps they could just produce a new one to replace the less than good ones. Maybe they did and I don't know how to get one. ?

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