Laptop battery with new charger

[Leo]

As a preface I know next to nothing about batteries, but...

 

 

A couple months ago my old adapter for my Dell Inspiron 1525 kinda *bzzed* out and I had to get a new one. Since then I've noticed that my battery life has dropped rather significantly. My old adapter, which came with the laptop, had an output of 19.5V which matched the input level of my battery, but the new one I got provides an output range of 17-21 volts. Is this bad?

 

 

Old: http://www.overstock.com/Electronics/BasAcc-Black-Laptop-Adapter-Travel-Charger-for-Dell-Inspiron-1501/6743867/product.html?cid=213889&kid=130499585361138&track=pspla&adtype=pla&kw={keyword}

 

New: http://www.kensington.com/kensington/us/us/p/1440/K38084NA/laptop-power-adaptor-with-usb-dell.aspx

 

 

I should also probably throw in that I've had this laptop for about 6-7 years now so it could just be cause of long use or something but I wanted to make sure. Thanks in advance! :)

[20000_Posts]

Yea so these universal chargers are usually pretty good at adjusting to the required voltage and amperage. If it were causing problems you'd have noticed big problems by now (computer not turning on, shutting down, flickering, exploding).

 

I'm betting that it's just a coincidence that the battery is dying. If it's lithium ion battery, they traditionally die after 5-6 years, nothing you can do about that. It is possible that the charger is damaging it, but you'd have to do controlled tests to really know.

[Leo]

Yeah, there haven't been any problems other than battery life so it's probably just the lifetime; I'll be getting a new laptop soon so it's nbd.

 

 

 

Thanks a lot! :D

[Guest bdol]

I have the same Inspiron 1525 laptop and my battery went dead after 2 1/2 years. 6 -7 years is very very good! I can only hope that my new Inspiron 1545 battery lasts as long as yours. The one I got is a 6 cell battery rated at 5800mAh so it has about %40 more power than the original 4400 mAh battery and should last 3-4 years as it is designed to last a longer than other batteries. So far, after 1 year of use the battery still has over %90 of its original capacity so it doesn't look like I will need a replace any time soon.

 

As for my charger, the power cord started to fray where the plug attaches to the laptop, perhaps a similar issue is occurring with your charger.