I bought a second battery (standby as I am going to Africa) for my Inspiron, charged it for about 10 hours until it indicated it is full. However, the power light has been flashing red since. Even when I changed to the old battery, the flashing red light continues. Even when the computer is switched off it continues to flash.

The battery should be charged overnight ie for approx. 10 hours.
When the battery runs down then charge it up again until it is fully charged, you may need to do this several times until the battery reached it normal capacity.

Hello,
To charge the battery back you want to

1. Turn the power off the DVD player first as the battery pack will not charge with the power on.
2. Attach the battery pack to the player.
3. Connect the AC power adapter and the power cord to the player.
4. Charging will now start and the Power/Charge indicator should now be orange.
5. Do not unhook either cord until the Power/Charge turns off.
6. Time of charging is approximately 4 1/2 hours.
7. The battery pack will more than likely get warm while charging. This is normal. Keep it as much in the open as you can for the best ventilation possible.
8. You will get a low power indicator on the screen when the battery has a low charge.

As for playback time you will get about 2 1/3 hours of actual playback and about 4 hours of standby with the DVD player actually on.
Regards, Tony

just leave it its charging even when light out

Just charge it until the battery indicator indicates that the battery is full. If you want to make sure you properly condition your new battery, charge it for 12-16 hours, even if full. But usually, charging until full is sufficient, and should not take more than 6 hours if new.

Hi one reason batterys dont last as long as they should is that when you charge them up they never achieve full charge and some cells will only take between 50 and 65 % charge, what you should now try is letting the battery go totally flat so that your phone wont even light up when you try switching it on keep doing this until the battery is totally dead, then give it a full recharge, you should now find it lasts a lot longer, you should aim to do this once a month to ensure you battery stays at its best, they dont tell you this when you buy the phone but it is common knowledge in the phone industry.

give it a try and you should be surprised what you find.

How ever you cant always believe what the phone adverts tell you because their are heavy duty batteries you can buy for certain phones, but if you think you have a good case of false advertisement then contact the phones makers and have a word with them they may even send you some free extras as they like to keep their customers happy,

You also got to remember that standby time means 17 days if the phone is not used and no one rings it say you take the sim card out then give it full charge, then with the sim card out see how long the battery lasts then this will give you some idea of the things that use the battery up such as alarms, people ringing, texts, even when you press a button this uses power to light the screen up so you can only rely on standby time if the phone is sitting their doing nothing.

i hope this as been some help to you

sounds like your charging circuit isn't working or the adapter isn't putting out enough power or amprage to fully charge the battery, or you battery went bad. if the charging circuit is bad then so is *********** board, time to burry the system and buy a new one

How long does your battery usually last? If it lasts 2 hours or more, that's normal for a notebook computer. The standby mode and turning off of hard drives is what notebooks are designed to do to give you more battery life. If you have to have it on and available all the time without going into standy mode, you'll need to get used to charging it every couple of hours. If you want to get more battery life, try the following options:
1) have the display turned off when not in use (this setting can be changed where you set up your screensaver)
2) turn off the wireless function (if available) when not in use
3) have the computer go to standby mode after 10 or 15 minutes of inactivity.
4) lower the brightness of your display

All of the above assumes that you're getting a decent charge and can use the notebook unplugged for 2 hours or more. Naturally, over time, notebook batteries wear down and don't hold a charge as well as they once did. If your notebook is a few years old and you're only getting an hour or so on a full battery, then it is probably time to invest in a new battery. If your notebook is new and you are getting this short battery life, contact Dell for a replacement battery as yours may be defective.

One last thing about notebook batteries. They are designed to be charged up and run down. If you leave your computer plugged in to a/c power all the time while you are using your computer, this greatly speeds up the wearing down of the battery. Whenever possible, you should fully charge your battery and then run the battery down to 10% or less before plugging it back in. This ensures that you get the most battery life on a consistent basis.

Hope this help. Please take a moment to rate the solution. Thanks.

try running with battery out it should still work as long as it is pluged to a/c

Not sure if this will help... however an altmeter will allow you to test along your electrics for any faults. You can check at the lights for example and throught the system.

My experience was similar to yours. The LED turned green after about only 2 hours. Because I didn't want to stay up until midnight to start playing with my Axim, I took it out of the cradle after the 2 hours and everything was fine. Besides, having downloaded and read the user's guide 2 days before receving my Axim, I knew that a green LED meant it was ready to go. 3 days later, everything is still fine and seems normal. A year ago, I received a Palm with similar initial charging requirements, and it also didn't take as long as the directions said it would.