My company has an old Dell Latitude c840 laptop where the battery light keeps flashing, regardless of the fact that within the Power Options/PowerMeter Tab, it says that the battery is 100% charged.


It is interesting however that there are two battery icons present, #1 and #2. Usually, on other laptops, the battery that is charged is #1, but for this laptop, it is #2.

Does this have anything to do with it, and if so, how do I change the settings to use the charged #2 battery?

So, the laptop is not working because it's drawing power from the wrong battery? This is a PROBLEM right?

It's a legitimate question. Perhaps you misinterpreted it when reading it, as the original poster mentions nothing about the laptop not working-the questions are about settings regarding the power supply.



SysTech Guy, I believe that there's an option to shut off the battery indicators/warnings. Perhaps it's in the control panel......? I'm no pro when it comes to a laptop (sorry!). However, if you can't find it, please post back saying so and let us know and we'll get this solved for you!

To be more specific I am running a Windows XP Pro SP2 laptop and the battery light under the LCD screen, above the keyboard, is flashing orange....which to me means a low battery charge (or maybe the battery is just bad).

When I go to Control Panel / Power Options / Click on the "Power Meter" Tab I see that battery #2 is fully charged at 100% while battery #1 is "Not Present".

It has been my experience, what experience that I have, that when a laptop has one battery, as this one does, the battery reading 100% would often be battery #1 and battery #2 would read "Not Present"

I do not know if this the reason for the flashing orange light for the aparantly fully charged battery, but I thought I would mention it since to me it was an anomaly.

I went to Control Panel / Power Options and poked around and I could not find anything other than the ability to adjust the Alarm when the battery is low.

I am beginning to suspect that the battery is going bad, just not sure why it is reading at 100% and all indications other that the aforementioned flashing light, everything seems fine.

How long does it take for the battery to lose it's charge when in use (without the AC adapter plugged in)? That is a good indicator of the status of your battery.