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Best thing to start with is check the battery connections to make sure they are clean and tight.
If they are good use a volt meter to measure battery voltage. You should see 12.5 volts with everything turned off. then check it with the headlights turned on. If voltage drops than the battery is dead.
You can also try jumpstarting the vehicle. Once the vehicle is started measure voltage at the battery. You should see around 14 volts with the engine running. If you don't than the alternator may not be working.
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Have your battery AND alternator checked for free at you local auto parts store before you have a bigger problem...the battery light can also indicate the alternator is not properly charging...(also may be a loose or worn belt:) Hope this helps.
Check battery connections for corossion. Also check battery to body ground, battery to motor ground, and motor to body ground strap for corossion. Sometimes they corrode under mounting bolt and cause bad ground.
You broke your serpatine belt. Needs replacing. It's a $50ish part and easy to do if you have a diagram under the hood of how the belt fits. But if it was "rattling" for a couple of weeks take it in for crying out loud. Let the mechanic look it over to make sure your lack of vechile care didn't destroy anything under the hood.....
Besides the obvious: checking your alternator/charging system. If the check engine light is not on, or it comes on, and after awhile it comes off, then a couple of hours or days later it comes on again it might the crankshaft sensor. It happened to me, and it was a pain in the neck to diagnose as the check engine light had turned off and the computer wouldn't read any codes to diagnose the problem. My mechanic was trained by Mopar/Jeep, so he immediately knew what was happening.
If it is a dead or shorted battery, when the RPM's are up the vehicle will run, and you might notice a loss on power. Once the engine goes to idle and the RPM's come down the engine will die, as there is not sufficient electrical power generated by the alternator to supply the engine. A bad alternator will cause battery problems.
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