Dell is notorious for these types of games

First post by: www.itbattery.com

The excuse IBM Laptop Battery gives for disabling the computer in this way, that the computer has to “adjust the performance to match the power available”, is a joke. How does the computer know how much power is available if it can’t identify the adapter? Why does running my (IBM 92P1073 Battery) computer at half speed somehow ensure that I will have enough power available, regardless of what adapter I might be using? If Dell really did have the customers’ interests in mind when creating this “functionality”, they would have provided a way to override it in the BIOS for those who know they have a powerful enough adapter. Clearly, this is simply a way to force people to replace lost or worn adapters (which typically are not under warranty) only from Dell.


Dell is notorious for these types of games. While researching this problem, I came across one case in which their desktop computers came with power supplies that looked identical to industry-standard ATX power supplies. However, if you attempted to use the power supply with a replacement motherboard that was not from Dell, it would destroy your computer. (see the wikipedia article on the ATX standard, where there is a section devoted to IBM 08K8199 Battery)


I was shocked to read one post in this forum in which someone describes having the same problem on their brand new IBM 08K8198 Battery. I had this issue on my IBM 08K8197 Battery, IBM 92P1075 Battery about four years ago. It’s one thing for Dell to try to lock people into using only Dell adapters, but continuing to do it after so many years of knowing all the unintended grief it causes for customers makes me never want to buy a Dell again. I just canceled my order for an XPS1530 after reading Matias’s post.