4 yellow 1 blue battery light flash on Dell laptop

[0100001001000010]

I have a Dell Precision M4500, and I recently used it on battery power for a bit. After I plugged it in again, the battery light flashed yellow 4 times and blue once, then repeated. This went on for a few minutes, and the battery did not charge. The battery still ran the system and re-inserting the adapter and battery did not fix it. After a few minutes, the flash code stopped and the battery charged normally. The battery was and still is perfectly functional. The service manual for my system does not appear to describe this flash code (the closest match it has is alternating amber with steady blue), and the Dell forums and knowledgebase only seem to talk about other systems that do not appear to be closely related. I remember this happening a few months ago too, but I think it might have been 2 yellow flashes instead of 4 last time.

What does this mean, and is it a serious problem or something that I can just ignore?

[aisle9]

What does the battery health show up as in BIOS?

 

How long had it been off of battery power? If the battery sits alone for extended time periods, it can drain itself to 0 and need time on a charger before it reads again.

[TheBean]

call dell. this seems pretty technical and rare. they might be able to help

[0100001001000010]

I believe the system was running on battery power for about half an hour, and I immediately plugged it back in afterwards. I never left the battery sitting alone. The last time I checked, the BIOS reported the battery health as normal. Linux also reports the battery health as normal. Should I reboot and see what my BIOS says, or should we go with this?

[aisle9]

Just now, 0100001001000010 said:

I believe the system was running on battery power for about half an hour, and I immediately plugged it back in afterwards. I never left the battery sitting alone. The last time I checked, the BIOS reported the battery health as normal. Linux also reports the battery health as normal. Should I reboot and see what my BIOS says, or should we go with this?

Linux is reading the same info that BIOS is, so no point in doing so. I'd throw a post in the Dell forums and/or on the r/Dell subreddit and see if anyone has any ideas. Otherwise, just monitor it and see if it happens again.

[0100001001000010]

The reason why I didn't try the Dell forums is because they always seemed to recommend replacing hardware without an explanation for why, but I guess I'll try them.

[0100001001000010]

13 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

just monitor it and see if it happens again.

Well, it just happened again.

[aisle9]

11 hours ago, 0100001001000010 said:

Well, it just happened again.

r/Dell

 

Dell systems, as a brand, break with such alarming regularity that someone in there has seen that error before and knows how to fix it. If that doesn't work, it's time to try the Dell forums. Most of the people there (including the mods) are utterly clueless, but if you explain exactly what's going on and ask for the logic behind any suggestions they make, you might get somewhere.