"You are using an unsupported battery"

[TheBlackAdder]

5. Is it an OEM from DELL direct or was it an Amazon/eBay or other sourced replacement battery?

.

There is a whole bootleg battery industry in China that floods the US market with bogus batteries that are not up to OEM specs and often do not have the fire-prevention logic chips in them to prevent excessive charges, which degrade the battery to the point where it can catch fire.

Boing Boing did a thing on this years ago. The battery clones can even fake out manufacturer supply chains, that's how good of a copy they are. While I like buying stuff on eBay and Amazon at times, laptop batteries should NEVER be purchased there. Only from the OEM supplier.


Also, to keep your battery lasting the longest, perform full charges and deplete it 90% or more before recharging. Batteries have a counter, roughly around 1000-1200 charge cycles to prevent the breakdown that causes fires. My sister would buy a battery and then six months later say it was dead. What she was doing was carrying the laptop from room to room and each time plugging it in. She would do that 5-10 times a day, and each plug-in counted for a charge cycle, so when the battery counter reached near the limit, it would signal for a replacement. If you properly charge your laptop, you should get 3 years or more out of it. My Thinkpad X1 is over 3 years and it's battery life is around 90%.

.