I have tried on my own Precision, and I can confirm it will not work. When it recognizes it has no battery, it tries troubleshooting and then shuts down. I haven't found a way around this, but unless you need extra space for something, it should be fine as long as your power brick is ok. I just keep my battery installed, but never unplug my laptop from a power source, so it's basically a desktop. Either get a new battery if you want portability or keep the old battery in and use it as a desktop. Hope this helps.