How interchangeable are laptop batteries?

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

klugja@hotmail.com wrote:
>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? Is this a real Dell battery
or an aftermarket one?

Dell is getting very restrictive about battery and charger
compatibility lately...

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

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.

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

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 pissed.

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

>> 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.

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Dan Goodell <dg1261nojunk@cs.com> 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.

  UP grade CD? I never heard it, in some replacement battery site like www.usa-batteries.com, the dell 1691p laptop battery is compatible with the 310-0028, the means the 1691p could be directly replaced by the 310-0028.