My laptop, a Dell Latitude CPi has three indicator lights on the upper edge of the open keyboard. The light on the right is for the battery. I cannot start the computer without the charger hooked up. Nothing happens when I attempt to power up, no lights, no sound, nothing. I hook up the charger and it will power up but the right light is blinking yellow.At this p[oint I check the battery charge and it is at 86%. Whats wrong? Bill

Hi Bill, hi everyone, I have had several "Dell Latitude CPI"s at work, I have many other models of Latitudes and the battery is often dead after 1 year and 1 day LOL (the warranty is 1 year! ;-) ... and it's expensive! :-( Hope you can test your battery on another CPI (or another battery on your CPI) HTH Have a good day, Gérard from Paris, France

I removed the battry and checked it iaw the manual. "Press the white button and the yellow lights will indicate the charge." When I pressed the white button the yellow lights indicates approx. 86% charge. That is the same as when the battery was in the computer and I checked the charge from the taskbar. And by the way, the battery did charge up from less than 50% to 85%. Could something else be suspect? Like the computer itself. I know that trying another battery will verify the repair needed. But I suspect its goinmg to be hard to find. Bill

I bought post-leasing Latitude CPt without Dell driver CD. My battery 1691P, when checked (white button), displays all LEDs. But system doesnt see it (Win98SE). The notebook works fine only with charger attached. Is there any soft to initialise the battery or to diagnose it? If so, could ypu provide me with one?

Hi Akun_mir, hi everyone, I have oodles of Dell Latitudes at work but I don't know how to help you! I never had this problem or rather... I don't know as my computers are under warranty so that Dell immediately replaces some parts when needed! With such symptoms, Dell would surely replace the motherboard... but of course, it's not my advice in your case! To know whether some chip of the motherboard causes this, could you ask for a friend's battery? Have a good day, Gérard from Paris, France

Hi Frenchie, Thanks for advice. I'll try it. But it seems to me, that the problem is with controlling electronics inside the battery. BIOS recognizes the presence of battery in either slot (charging = 0). That's the reason why i'm looking for dedicated diagnostcs soft.

Hi Andy_mir, hi everyone, >But it seems to me, that the problem is >with controlling electronics inside the >battery. I think everytime I had to call Dell about the battery, it was because of battery unable to keep the power (no led)... I don't remember a repair man changing a battery that had all leds on. I'm presently on vacation but back to work next Monday! I never had CPt Latitude (had CPiA, CPiR, CPx)... at the time of CPiA, we should have had diags on floppies, then diags on CDs... I hope I can find floppies to be able to send the content to you (far more difficult with CDs)! Have a good day, Gérard from Paris, France