I've been having a serious issue with my Dell G3 15 laptop's battery. When I unplug it, it goes from fully charged (100%) to completely dead (0%) in just about 20 seconds! I've always kept it plugged in while gaming, so I wonder if that could have led to this problem. Is there a way to troubleshoot this, or am I looking at needing a replacement? The laptop is around 4-5 years old, and today when I unplugged it, it just shut down instantly. Now there's a cross mark on the battery icon when I try to turn it back on.
5 Answers
It sounds like your battery has reached the end of its life. Most laptop batteries start to degrade after about 3 years, and if you've been keeping it plugged in all the time, that could definitely speed things up. It's probably time to replace it.
With lithium-ion batteries, they degrade faster when kept at 100% or 0%. Since you've always kept it charged, that’s likely caused the quicker degradation. Ideally, you want to keep it charged between 40% to 80% to extend its life. But considering it's 4-5 years old, you should probably just replace it.
Rechargeable batteries have a finite lifespan, so yeah, it’s likely that your battery is toast. If it's not holding any charge anymore, replacing it would be your best bet.
This is classic: keeping it plugged in all the time will kill a battery fast. If you're doing serious gaming, maybe a desktop could be a better option since you won't need the portability of a laptop. Just a thought!
Dell only guarantees their batteries for one year, so you're definitely on borrowed time if you've been using it for 4-5 years.
Maybe try performing a battery calibration cycle first. Sometimes recalibrating can help, but if it's truly dead, you'll have to get a new one. Here's a link on how to do it: [Battery Calibration Guide](https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-uk/000205559/how-to-perform-a-battery-calibration-cycle-on-a-dell-laptop).