Notebook computer battery says: plugged in but not charging with no further information. Is the battery bad already?

My 1.5 year old Dell Studio 15 notebook computer has a battery and I keep it attached to the notebook but 98% of the time I just plug in the power adapter.

Lately when I unplugged the power adapter, the battery was only good for 10 minutes, and a few days ago, when I unplugged the power adapter, the computer simply turned off.

When clicking on the battery icon on Win 7, it says "Plugged in, not charging":

is the battery dead? Or can Windows 7 have any option to not charge the battery?

It is a Dell Studio 15, I wonder if in such case, it looks like it can be a manufacture's defect, would Dell replace the battery? (if there was a recall, then they probably would, i think). The notebook is 1.5 year old.

Your battery is probably dead, but here are a few things you can try:

1. Perform an ATX reset. Remove all power (battery + power lead) and hold the on button down for 30 seconds.
2. In control panel > power management (or the equivalent from XP) turn off the options "shutdown / standby when battery critically low" or similar, so Windows will never try to turn itself off when the battery is low.
3. Run the battery right down (probably not that difficult :D)
4. Leave it plugged in for 16 hours.
5. Start her up on battery alone and see how far you get.

Repeat steps 3, 4 and 5 if you notice your laptop stays alive for longer and longer periods of time as suggested in step 5.

If this isn't successful you have effectively diagnosed a dead battery.

The battery is probably damaged, but if you don't want to invest in a new battery you could try to workaround the issue each time it occurs.

What worked in my case is to power off, remove the battery, and push the power button to discharge capacitors, etc, as explained in other answers here. That works but needs powering off/on

So here's something shorter that may work: leave the laptop plugged to mains, remove the battery, put the battery back on: the battery resumes charging.

You need to do that each time you get the issue, but at least it's fast & doesn't need power off.