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My wife has a Dell Vostro 1700 Laptop, the battery was several years old, and no-longer held a charge for more than 20 minutes. So I ordered an aftermarket battery. After I installed it, she started complaining that it was making her laptop slow. I tested it and her laptop is so slow that it doesn't even read every keypress, maybe registering 2 out of 3 keystrokes. I did not think it could be the battery, so I did the usual, reboot, scan for malware, etc nothing helped. I put the original back in and everything is fine. I put the new one back in and instantly the laptop slows to a crawl. It does not matter whether the laptop is plugged into AC power or not. Also with the new battery installed, the systray says On AC Power, not charging. Is there something on the Dell that is interfering with the aftermarket battery?

System: Dell Vostro 1700, running Win 7 32bit.

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  • You remove the battery software that is installed if your going to use a non-OEM battery
    – Ramhound
    Feb 16, 2014 at 18:17
  • That was my thought, but I don't see a Dell Battery app. Add/Remove programs shows Dell Touchpad, and Dell Wireless, but no Battery Monitor or Quickset type Programs.
    – BillN
    Feb 17, 2014 at 0:51
  • Dell makes the system very slow when a charger is detected as non original, (or doesn't have exactly the same voltage than the genuine one). I didn't experienced it myself, but it's known that Dell computers don't like non genuine batteries.
    – Quidam
    May 8, 2020 at 2:50

3 Answers 3

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Sounds like the aftermarket battery is DOA - Dead On Arrival. Seeing how as you have fairly definitively found a causal link between the problem and the new battery, I would return if for a refund or replacement.

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I'd suggest that it has nothing to do with the quality of the aftermarket battery, but rather Dell's sneaky tricks to force you to buy genuine Dell batteries. If you go into the BIOS and scroll to the "Battery" section, you'll find it'll say something to the effect of "can't recognise battery, charging disabled, etc., etc."

On most of Dell's laptops, the BIOS will actually throw up an error message at each boot to complain about the battery (though it doesn't appear to be doing so on yours).

And yes, the two pivotal symptoms are:

  1. Extraordinarily slow speed and
  2. Refusal to charge the battery.

Unfortunately, I've scoured for many hours (actually many days) online and haven't managed to find any reliable method to bypass the "genuine battery" check. I bit the bullet and ordered a genuine battery from Dell (just over AUD$62 including postage, which isn't too bad I suppose), but if anyone has any better solutions (a hidden BIOS softswitch?), I'm all ears.

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I had similar issue with a MacBook Pro using its genuine battery, but which was in "to replace" condition. After everything tested (SSD instead of HDD, more RAM, system resintall) the problem reveal coming from the battery.

This suggests that something in the operating system, at the software level, is permanently checking the battery and strongly eating processor ressources.

There is maybe some battery management software that you could uninstall.

I would also check that the battery buy is not refurbished with bad cells. As a basic check, I would also compare the weight of the genuine battery with the weight of the one you purchased. Cheap cells are often lighter.

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