Alienware m11x battery failing.

Hello. This isn't normally where I would post this but for some reason I can't get to notebookreview.com's forums. I'm having trouble with my laptops battery. It will be in the 90% charged range and then suddenly be below 7% charged. I don't know much about lithium ion batteries but I think they are made of a bunch of different cells right? If that is so do you think I could have some dead cells or the batter is damaged and cells are shorting out?

Batteries, regardless of the type, are consumable items. Eventually they wear out and must be replaced. If a battery is defective, it may need to be replaced sooner rather than one would typically expect. While there are multiple possible reasons for the behavior you are experiencing (power circuitry in the laptop failing, a software issue) the most likely explination is that your battery is simply bad or defective and needs replaced. Best bet is to call Alienware support, describe the issue and walk through their troubleshooting steps.

One thing you can try, though. There's a "reset" procedure that you can use on Alienware laptops that helps with some other battery related issues (like the "not charging" problem on the m17x). Turn off your laptop, unplug it from AC power and remove the battery. Then, press and hold down the power button for 10 seconds. Release the power button, replace the battery, plug the laptop back into AC power and turn it back on. This procedure doesn't affect any data or require you to reconfigure anything afterwards, but if the problem isn't a defective battery but instead the laptop incorrectly reporting the charge level this may help.

-Byshop

Thanks for the help. I'll give that a try.