Battery or charger problem - how to tell?

[violetqueen]

I expect this is a silly question but is there anyway to ascertain battery health on Dell laptop running Vista ?

I'm wondering if the charger connection is causing problems charging or if it's the battery ?

Batteries don't last forever you know, they loose there ability to hold a charge over time and if they get constantly recharged when they have not depleted fully it speeds up the process of capacity lose.

if the laptop works from the charger but the battery isn't lasting long, it's the battery.

Mmm .not that .
Sometimes when charger connected to laptop and all fired up ( switched on ok I mean ) lap top not charging .
And sometimes get error message - something about not recogonising charger .

A valuable diagnostic check on the charger is trying to run the system with the charger plugged in and the battery taken out.

Bear in mind that both could be faulty. My MIL's laptop recently had both a dead battery and a flaky character. Having more than one fault can make it harder to figure out what's going on.

Mmm, the not recognising charger bit sounds familiar.

Are you having an issue similar to this? [[http://www.laptop-junction.com/toast/content/dell-ac-power-adapter-not-recognized]

Dell have historically had a few problems with the ID chip inside the power adaptor. This chip is of course to protect you against destroying your laptop by using non-Dell adaptors

Depending on the age of the laptop and how much you fancy shouting at Dell, you might be able to argue they replace the adaptor.