Dead battery-->low idle?
 

Hello everyone!

Here's the story:

I, being an idiot and having a twitchy finger on the snooze button, left my lights on for approx. 8 hours. Needless to say, when I went to start my car that evening, the battery was deader than a zombie. I had to have it jump-started as there wasn't a sufficient hill to "manually start-up" my battery.

As I was driving around, I noticed I had a very, very low idle (I'm guesstimating around 300rpm). Every time I stopped at a light, the car would stall. I thought it was the battery so I drove around on the highways for about 45 mins at around 70-80mph (if you're a police officer, change mph to kph). Unfortunately, that didn't solve the problem.

I should add that it had been raining all-day and that the evening was very damp. I drive a used 2005 Mazda 3S 2.3L standard.

I should also add that I am a complete and utter novice so you may have to dumb down any advice.

I appreciate any suggestions and comments (I will be the first to admit that I was quite irresponsible for letting the battery die); as always internet chocolate chip cookies to everyone :D!.

First, the battery has a problem when dead like that to get a complete charge, even while driving, especially if you are running lights, defrost and wipers in the rain.
The Computer needs to reset, it will happen eventually, but would probably happen faster if the battery was fully charged.

Hallo all, Thanks for your suggestions. After a night of rest, my car's idle is back to around 900rpm. However, I'll be stopping by my mechanic to get things checked out and/or the battery recharged. I'll probably have him do all the disconnecting and reconnecting as if I attempt a do-it-yourself the results might end up on http://thatwillbuffout.com/. Have a nice weekend everyone!