Dell E5540 battery not charging

Hello and welcome Les mate first lets take a look at the state of the batteries themselves
Using HW Info
PART A:
You can test the volts on the PSU with HW Info HWiNFO, HWiNFO32/64 - Download < download the right bit version and close the right hand window select Sensors and scroll down to the power section where you will see what the volts are doing see my pic. In my pic the section (Nuvoton) with VBATT is a dead give away you are in the section for the rail voltages. There are other section titles and one that pops up often is ITE
Now the voltage on the different rails have to be within 5% =+/- of what is required or the machine will not work properly if at all.
See this for the rail voltage info
Power Supply 101: A Reference Of Specifications - Power Supplies (Section 2.)
The original right hand window shows the machine running and is handy for that but for looking at the components in some detail close it and use the main left hand side panel
FOR OTHER COMPONENTS
PART B:
Open each small square with + in it on the section the components are in and then click on the individual component/s (it will highlight in blue) - in the right hand side will appear all sorts of details including brands speeds and other essential info that particular device. See pic for example.
Use PART A: and scroll down that particular window until you get to what you see in my pic

Ok mate now this to me is a dead battery if the system is telling you the thing is charging .

One thing you can do is test the voltage on the adaptor with a digital multimeter (see pic) to see if it is putting out the correct volts - typically 19v - it should be marked on the battery as 19v @ 4.2.AMPS or something like that.

The positive (red lead) usually is the centre hole and the negative is the outside contact "cylinder" in any case the meter will tell you if it is connected the wrong way round showing a minus sign - in front of the shown voltage - it will not hurt anything. Meters are not expensive around $5 - $10 would be suffice.

Now you say the battery has not been charged or discharged very often that means you have never run it on battery for any length of time?
As a matter of interest Lithium ion batteries do not last long if left to often completely discharge therefore one should always make sure the battery is kept charged to some realistic level. Plus they degrade from the day of manufacture meaning that they have a definite "use by date" usually between 3 - 5 years if you are careful with them. In theory you could buy a new two year old laptop witha battery that may only last 1 year.:)

It could be a dead battery. Dell -like many computer manufacturers - only warranties most batteries for a year. The fact that the BIOS shows excellent health means that the battery is probably good but that isn't always accurate. The other possibility would be that the connector on on the laptop is bad and it isn't really making a good contact with the battery. You would need another known good battery or another laptop that uses the same battery to test that theory.

Les both myself and KA have put forward what we think is wrong doesn't mean either or both of us are right - the only thing you can do is to know the power source (adaptor) is ok for what it is supposed to be supplying as I described. The volts are easy enough to confirm the current well it is a different kettle of fish as you need the meter between the source and device (battery in your case) and being a laptop that is not going to be possible.

The best way to find out what is going on is to fit that new battery. Now you also have to take into account who and where the battery is made ie is it a genuine part or a generic branded part. In my experience the genuine is the best (but also more expensive) the generics usually are good but often made from less than optimum materials and/or shoddily put together.


A good example - hand held cordless drills those rechargeable batteries in them for a genuine part will usually contain "D" size cells to make up the drill's operating voltage whereas the generic batteries often use "C" and even "AA" cells and are usually of a very poor quality. Hence they do not hold the charge for any length of time or last for any length of time. In addition they will use NiCad (nickel cadmium) battery cells instead of the preferred NiMH (metal hydride) cells, or best of all Lithium ion cells as one gets in alptop batteries and hand held devices.
It all bold down to cost of course which is why often those cheap cordless drills are so cheap :)