Laptop Batteries

[Andrew O Byrne White - Ireland AO]

Hoping someone with some computer knowledge on here can offer some advice!  My laptop has always occasionally played up - just randomly powering down, or not being willing to start up without being plugged in even though the battery is charged.  Rang Dell several times while it was under warranty and they could never find any fault with it, as it was so intermittent.  Now that the warranty is gone, it's playing up again, but this time not intermittently.  It will only stay on while plugged in, even though it says the battery is at 63% and "Not charging".  Again, all the diagnostics, even the extended ones, say all is fine.  So as a relatively inexpensive potential fix, I decided to swap out the battery.  The one in it is a 357F9 11.1V unit.  Ordered a replacement from Duracel Direct, and what's arrived is a 357F9 11.4V one.  Rang them up to complain, as the listing on their website clearly says 11.1V and they've tried to tell me that "Within about 0.3V is fine". 

 

Now in my logic, the charging circuit will be measuring the voltage of the battery to determine how quick to charge it.  As it comes close to 11.1V, it'll slow down, and ultimately stop charging.  So if I put an 11.4V battery in it, that will never charge to capacity.  Have I got this right, or will the 11.4V unit be fine?  When I said this back to the guy on the phone, he was stumped, and said someone would ring me back in a few minutes.  2 hours later, still haven't heard back.

[SootySport]

That sounds ok to me. A 12 v charger will bring the battery back up to 11.4v.    As long as the charger voltage is higher than the battery it will charge to it’s max.

Why didn’t you go back to Dell for repair as you reported the same problem before the warranty expired.