G53JW battery LED flashing orange!

Hi guys,
My G53JW and its built-in battery is 40 months old. I didn't use the battery often, maybe a few times a year, and always stored inside the notebook against momentary city electricity cut-offs. Lately, my battery isn't able to fully charge, that is %100, and always stays at %97 or 96, can't reach %100. The battery icon on taskbar says "%97 available, plugged in, NOT charging".

The worse, the battery LED usually blinks orange as it shows it's not able to re-charge more. The only temporary fix is to remove the battery unit and wait a few seconds, then re-insert it, then power up the notebook.

Here is my HWINFO64 screenshot about my battery, wear level is about %16 which is not very true...



What should i do? It's OKAY not to see %100 charge, but seeing battery LED flashing orange drives me crazy and annoys too much.

Note: I did some calibration, drained as low as %20, then re-charged. But didn't help.

Any help???

 

Order a new battery, reassess the situation after you have broke in the new battery.

If a new battery doesn't solve your situation then it's either the charger or the motherboard, the battery is probably the culprit though.

 

Where can i order a new (geniue OEM Asus) battery???? That's the problem. My friend is in USA and i can want him to bring me a new one, but i don't know where to order. The ones on the net are replacement batteries which are made in China and cheap, and lasts only a few months (maybe weeks)....

 

I uploaded a video, the LED is flashing orange along with green. The battery is working but the LED indicates there's a problem, maybe circuit problem inside battery: ??? Apparently, there's a reporting problem from the battery. Because, when i remove and re-insert the battery, it gives correct remaining level and remaning time.

 

New Genuine Original Battery for Asus G73 G73J G53JW G73S 07G016DH1875 A42 G73 | eBay

This battery should be an OEM replacement, shipping from china though.

 

Batteries should not be charged when above 95% as lots of 95% to 100% cycles will wear the battery.

 

You know, unfortunately, i CAN'T control this. As manual says, and which was my main concern since the first date of my notebook purchase, the battery gets charged automatically when level gets below %95 and tries to reach to %100. There's no way to control this, AFAIK in BIOS, it's hard-coded. Thus the cycle between %95 and %100 is inevitable and wears the battery.

However, my current reported level is %94 and it's not being charged!???

I'm quite sure that the battery levels are reported inaccurately. And after trying charging, sometimes it flashes orange along with green. My uncle's Toshiba's battery is 7 year-old and still works without such problems. I'm not going to buy Asus products any more.

 

For safety reasons these options are usually hard coded into the firmware, it could be the control chip inside the battery itself having issues.

 

Now it's worse than ever. The battery sometimes tries to recharge itself and fails at the end, then the LED begins flashing orange (without green) and sometimes flashing orange along with green.

Interestingly, removing and re-inserting cures the problem for the moment till next time. What should i do?

 

Consider a replacement.

 

I have to, i think. Current sitiuation, the battery is not being charged more than %92, additionaly, the battery LED indicator is off, no green or no orange, it's OFF. The battery circuit must have gone bad.

 

I had the same problem, although my battery is a hybrid with Panasonic cells (the best in the market), and what i did was to basically drain it completely (change settings so it will shut down at 5% or so), then boot into bios left it there until was drained completely so you can not power it up at all how many times you try. Then i put the power cord back on and booted up. Status light would not even light at all, but in hwinfo i was seeing that it was charging very slowly. When it reached 14V or something, it started charging properly again, and never had this problem. This basically re-calibrated the whole battery. BEWARE if you are using the stock ASUS battery it uses LG cells and it is very likely that they will die out completely during this process since they are unprotected cells (unlike the panasonic which are protected). Either way this is the only way to fix the problem, so if they die you need a new battery eitherway so you are not losing anything!

 

Thanks dude for your crucial help. I'm really hesitating to do this as you're saying that Asus notebooks have unprotected LG cells, which may completely kill battery unit with no resurrection chance. Right? I know Lithium batteries are subject to die when they're completely drained, and as long as i'm getting backed up although battery LEDs and circuits are went wrong, do you still recommend doing that stuff you've mentioned?

Thanks a lot!

 

You will not completely drain the cells by letting the unit sit in the BIOS setup screen until it powers itself off. The cells will still have voltage, just not enough to power the computer. If you left the battery empty like that for days it would eventually self-discharge to the point where it would need to be recharged with a special tool. Recalibrating the battery gauge by letting it drain completely is a common practice, you should not hesitate to do it unless you really suspect the battery is on the way out, in which case you should have already ordered a new one!

 

When they've completely drained yes, but as ALLurGroceries mentioned that would not be the case. You will only drop down to 13.2V or something near it that will not be able to power-up the laptop. However in order to go down to 0% effective capacity you need to boot up after and leave it in the bios until it shuts off by itself. Then it will take approx. 30mins before they charge up again from ~13V to ~14V and start their normal charging cycle. Although this might damage the cells just a little, the warning i said about the LG cells is that are more sensitive/unreliable since in my case they all died completely while i had my laptop turned off while being connected to mains, and my friend's G75 battery failed in way that it has only capacity for like 5mins..

 

The worst case is you need a replacement as you would now anyway. It's worth a shot.

 

Thanks guys for the recommendations. I'll consider this, however i'm wondering one thing. Most of tutorials on the net are implying that we should consume battery on "Windows" until battery level drops to %5, then when it hits %5, it's suggested to go to BIOS to consume remaining %5 to drain battery completely. Question: When the battery is full, Why arent't we going to BIOS directly and let it drain completely from the rough, without having to booting to Windows? Is there a special reason the consume battery first on Windows, then in BIOS?

Thanks!

 

Yes windows will automatically shut down at a certain point (at your critical battery level setting), after then let it sit in the bios setup screen.

 

From my understanding you could, but as the drain in BIOS is slower it is usually easier to drain in windows while running a game or a few programs, then switch to BIOS for the end. If you have time you could leave from full on the BIOS window, but I'd think it might take a long time to drain. If there is a special reason I haven't heard it, just time constraints I think.

 

Hi guys,
I followed the recommendations and the things you pointed out, thanks. I tried to fully discharge the battery, used some stressing benchmark apps, and before doing this, i set critical battery level to %5 and action to "shutdown Windows". However, while the stressing apps are running, when the battery level hit %7-8, the computer automatically was hard-shutdown by itself, which means the battery couldn't reach to %5. I couldn't even enter the BIOS after that, because the notebook didn't power up.

Then now, i plugged the charger unit and it's started charging at %8 level, then after waiting for charging over 20 minutes, the battery level reading is updated to %5? but the charging level isn't proceeding waiting for a hour, maybe i have to wait more..? (( But, as per HWINFO64, the voltage level is approaching to 14.0V very very slowly, still.

My question, why couldn't i fully discharge the battery, i mean, the battery level indicator of Windows was showing %8 when the notebook auto-powered off itself, it couldn't even reach to %5.... Maybe the %8 reading was wrong? Or the battery failed to supply required voltage below this level? And how many hours do i have to wait to begin charging as it should? It passed 1,5 hours and HWINFO64 shows 13.8V still.

UPDATE: After fully discharging and trying to recharge the battery, it started flashing at %5 (( Plugged in, not charging. Did i do wrong by trying calibration!!!? Now it's not being charged



Please help

 

Hello Onur. I'll just reply to you here instead of PM. To give you a better explanation, inside the battery there is circuit board with a microcontroller which is called a "gas gauge". This chip is always connected to the battery and draws very little current while monitoring the status of each cell. This controller is also the one that reports capacity values to the laptop EC. When your laptop shut down at 7% it means that the controller was expecting more available charge in the cells. Since each cell will wear differently than each other, the available charge is only an approximation. By draining the cells 'fully' (at least to the minimum needed current to power up the laptop) the controller can recalibrate the status of the cells. Charging at the moment is very slow as the cells need a lot more time to get up to voltage ~14.6V where nominal charge rate is achieved. This happened when i did this too. Leave it charging (and don't take it out! as you will mess the calibration) and if the cells are healthy they will charge full. I don't remember when mine exactly started showing the orange charging status light but it was around 14.6-14.8V. Open HWinfo64 and you will see the voltage increasing very very slow..like 13.832V then after 10seconds, 13.841V. Just leave it to do its job. And btw i'm from Cyprus but live in UK.

 

Thanks TnF for your reply and your brief explanation. Since i've connected the charger, it took 5 hours and the voltage is now 13.961v. It's growing extremely slowly and instable. Not 0.010v in 10 seconds, 0.010v increment in 10 minutes maybe. And the battery level reading is now updatedmto %0 either in HWINFO and on Windows. When i remove power coord, the notebook powers of itself immediately which means battery is lack of required voltage to keep notebook online. It sometimes flashes orange as the charging is failed, and when i remove the battery out and re-insert it, it begins to charge again but the percentage isn't proceeding as stated.

As you've recommended, i connected the charger and waiting with patience to see any proceeding of percentage, and before this, the voltage must be reached to more than 14.4v or 14.6v as we agree.

I'll report the updates if you care any more, thanks a lot mate

 

Try leaving it plugged in and off over night.

 

Leaving it off won't make a difference. The AC adapter supplies way more power than the system will need to charge at idle unless you're running prime95 and furmark or something extremely demanding.

Have you tried taking the battery out, powering the machine off, and hitting the power button a few times (to reset the embedded controller)?

If it doesn't get up to voltage your options are limited. There is the freezer trick, which is an absolute last resort. Are you against buying a new battery?

 

Update: Hi guys again, i left the machine plugged in during the all night and when i woke up i met that battery LED was flashing orange. Fired up the machine with AC, launched HWINFO64, it says it couldn't even reach to 14.1v:



I had known that calibrating battery was risky, and would destroy the the whole Lithium battery unit, at least it was apparent from what i read, however as all of you guys have suggested doing the calibration without hasitating, did it, but now it's not charging, it seems dead, the LED flashing orange after 18 since calibration has finished Don't get me wrong, i don't blame anyone or any suggestion, yours were perfectly normal and valid, a routine operation for Lithium-batteries, and the symptoms were perfectly real especially from what i heard from "TnF". But i couldn't managed to revive the battery after draining for sake of "calibration".

@AllurGroceries: Nope, i'm not against buying a new battery, i want to, but in Turkey, there isn't. I have relatives in US, if you recommend a good replacement one, i can order via them. I'm not able to one "genuine" A42-G73 battery either from Asus or from any shop, so do i have to order a replacement one? I found this:

http://www.amazon.com/A42-G73-Battery-5200mAh-Extended-Capacity/dp/B008KQEPWU#customerReviews


As a result, do i throw the battery out my home's window? My biggest regret is that my battery has died without being used even a few times...

 

This may lead to some possibilities: Where to buy ROG in Turkey - Republic of Gamers

Also -- where did you purchase your machine? If you got it from an authorized reseller less than a year ago, the battery should be under warranty.

 

I purchased it from USA, 3 years ago. It's out of warranty, sorry

 

Your voltage looks good, since if you had a single cell complete failure voltage would be below 12.6V (4.2V max V per cell in series). You can actually, take it out, put it back-in so it stops flashing orange and help it a bit more to get up to higher voltage, else get a replacement. I know for a fact that the LG cells are , but you could actually buy Panasonic cells and replace them as i did: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu.../522917-g73-battery-pinout-5.html#post8816873 . Problem is that you need special firmware to recalibrate the controller, so i bought a chinese one and replaced it in there which is much easier.

 

Hi TnF, my current voltage is tied to 14.032 (actually dropped from 14.036) and steady there, and it fails to charge When i remove and re-insert the battery, the battery LED is steady-orange as if it's charging at %0, than after a few hours, it fails and begins flashing...

That means, discharging my battery completely, for the sake of calibration, killed it. So sorry, and i'm lost for the solution. I'm planning to order a new replacement one, if you know a good shop or product online, it'd be nice to hear.

 

Just avoid generic 3rd party replacements.

 

It's dead. I put it into my refrigerator's deep freeze and it's been shocked there for the last 3 days, still waiting as the last chance. Do you think that it can revive dead Lithium battery?

 

Once it's truly reached a certain point you can't no.

 

Hi guys,
I bought a replacement battery for my G53JW from Amazon, this one:
http://www.amazon.com/LB1-High-Perf...l_reviews&filterByStar=five_star&pageNumber=1

It's been working fine until today, and it started causing same trouble, the LED is blinking orange along with GREEN when the charging level is %100, like in the video involved in my quoted post. Just like original OEM Asus battery.

What is wrong? Am i unlucky about batteries or is there a power-unit fault?

Note: The battery backup performance is fine.