Laptop Battery is Faking It's Own Death

[KUJustin]

K, not exactly. My Dell e1505 laptop battery very suddenly went from getting a not-terrible 2 to 2.5 hour charge to getting about 45 minutes before going into standby. This happened seemingly overnight. I also started getting warnings that my battery is shot and needs replaced.

But here's the interesting part. I brought it out of standby a bit ago and decided to just use it until it dies. It's been going for a good half an hour now and has displayed 1 min (4%) remaining for most of that time.

Anyone had this experience? Basically I think my battery is in the same condition it was before but my comp is thinking (lying?) it is dead. I bought a 3rd party power adapter recently after mine died. This was around the same time the problem developed.