Vista - Laptop battery issue ??battery calibration??

Thanks for reading this. i have never posted anything in my life but i am stumped and need some help!
I got a dell inspiron 2200 and one day i was running it while it was pluged in and i unpluged it and the laptop just "Bloop" shut off......i tried turning it back on but nothing. just as if i had no battery in it at all. when i pluged it back in it fired up like normal i checked the battery meter and it said 97% full then charged up to 100% full but still it wont run off the battery. as soon as i unplug it it shuts right off.

Someone told me to run the battery calibration but my bios doesnt have an option for it. at least i cant find it. i know it has it somewere because when i first bought this laptop the screen was broke and when i bought a new one for it and booted it up it said i had to run the battery calibration befor it could start "not sure why" but i did...watched it drain and charge. so i know it's in here somewere. do you think this would even help?

Also i think i updated the bios so it might have had an older bios witch might have had the battery calibration and the new one i put on doesnt. It has verison A07 now. i tried "downgrading" to A05 and A06 but it doesnt let me, Says i have a newer verison and cannot install an older verison.

Stinks. this problem kinda takes the "Mobil" feature out of a laptop. Any help would be Awesome!

i'm afraid the battery calibration program is only used to initialize new Li-Ion batteries which need to be prepped with an initial charge-discharge cycle.

It sounds to me like you have a battery composed of 32 (probably AA sized) cells.
One of those cells has died and hence you see only 97% charge. Unfortunately losing a single cell prevents current from entering or leaving the battery so your battery will not discharge correctly therefore shutoff without discharge.

I think you need a new battery. Although it may be possible to replace the single bad cell, other cells may be degraded also - if one cell failed, why not others? unit could have been exposed to heat etc.

Although I was an engineer for Gould, I am not a battery expert!

good luck!
Simon

Your probably right but for some reason i'm thinking it's something else. i'm an electrition so i know a little about this. not enough i guess lol When i meter the battery i'm getting the 9.6 volts that it's supposed to have when i first looked at the battery meter in the task bar it was 97% but then after a few minutes it went up to 100% so i know the connection is good I also took the laptop apart and checked to make sure the 9.6 volts were making it into the board and they are. I know someone with the same laptop i will try his battery in my laptop and mine in his that should help narrow it down a bit.
the main reason this hurts me is because the AC input plug is going bad and when i bump or move the laptop it breaks the connection for a split second and now that the battery isnt working it just shuts the laptop off. when befor it didnt bother me because the battery would back it up for that split second and nothing would happen. I have searched all over and seems nobody else has ever posted anything about this problem anywhere. makes me feel stupid cause you can find almost anything about anything on the internet lol

Thank you for the reply! i will update tomorrow if my friends battery worked