On my Dell C Series laptop, I've got 2 batteries installed. Are they both discharching during use?

Question

Is power drawn from both batteries at the same time? Or does it draw power from #1, then switch to #2 ?

Answer 1

I'm not sure, but you could run a quick experiment to find out. Open your battery meter and see if the batteries are at the same level after using your laptop for a while. If they are, then both are discharging. If not, then one of them might be discharging first. (Make sure you plug in your AC adapter for this next part.) If you think one is discharging first, switch their positions and work for a while. Then check the battery levels - if we were assuming that one discharges first, then you should see the battery levels closer together (since one is just sitting in a bay and the other is discharging and we swapped positions). You can even tell which battery is discharging first from this part of the experiment (or rather, which battery bay is in use first before your laptop switches over). But if they're going down at the same rate, then both discharge at the same time.

I had a Sony laptop before, and the batteries in that laptop would discharge separately. I could tell that just from the battery meter.