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Pulled the dying battery out of my $80 Craigslist laptop and got 4 extra hours of runtime
Got a Dell Latitude off Craigslist for $80 about two months ago, thing was beat up but worked fine besides the battery dying in like 45 minutes. Ordered a replacement cell on eBay for $23, popped the back panel off with a guitar pick since I do not own a plastic spudger, and swapped it in about 10 minutes. First charge after the swap got me 4 hours and 20 minutes of normal browsing and docs, which honestly shocked me because I figured a used machine like that was just toast. Also found out the old battery was swollen a little, so good thing I opened it up when I did. If you are running an old laptop and the battery tanks fast, check the model number and look for a cheap replacement before you write the whole thing off. Curious if anyone here has a go to source for cheap laptop batteries that are not total junk, because eBay feels like a coin flip sometimes.
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jennifer_west7d ago
The fact that you opened an $80 laptop with a guitar pick and it actually worked is honestly the most impressive part of this whole story. I mean, a swollen battery is no joke though, those things can catch fire, so you basically got a bonus safety upgrade along with your extra hours. It is kinda wild that a $23 battery doubled the value of the whole machine, like you just built yourself a decent laptop for a hundred bucks total. Idk, I have had bad luck with cheap batteries off eBay myself, half of them say they hold a charge and then die at 30 percent. Maybe it's just me but I would rather pay a little more from a place that lets me return it if it turns out to be junk.
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