I’ve been getting a couple of e-mails and hearing from a few customers like ecoates1980 via Twitter and others like mrbofus who started this forum thread to say that the batteries on their Mini 9 either don’t seem to be charging at all, or that the battery won’t hold a charge.
Two recommendations for Mini 9 customers:
1. Please update your BIOS to the A04 version we recently published.
2. Please charge your battery for at least 12 hours before using the computer on battery power.
Here’s what’s going on. If a battery is not charged for extended periods of time without use, the battery enters something called pre-charge mode, which means it is drained beyond the 0% capacity level. Getting the battery out of pre-charge mode can require that the battery to be charged for up to 12 hours.
This is not unique to the Mini 9—it applies to other laptop batteries that have not been changed for a long period of time. After the initial charge, the battery will recharge as you would expect. You may use your system with the included AC Adapter while your battery is charging.
If you are running the A04 BIOS and have tried charging your battery for more 12 hours or more and are still having problems, please contact Dell Technical Support. Customers in the United States can use phone numbers on this page to contact Dell Technical Support.
Here’s the process for customers outside the United States:
- Go to support.dell.com
- At the very bottom of the page, select your country in the Choose a Country/Region field
- Choose Contact Us on the left hand side
- Click on the More Details link in the Contact Tech Support section
- Click on the green Telephone button under the Call Tech Support section
If you still need help after contacting technical support for this issue, please let me know in the comment thread of this post.