EXTREMELY hot charger/Is this signs of a bad battery?

I am using (and currently typing on) an Asus Eee PC 1005PEB that I purchased off eBay. I am currently having a problem with the charger; when I charge the battery, the little charger box/power supply gets SUPER hot to the point of pain when you touch it. I know it should not be like this. The charger that originally shipped with this laptop I believe burned up, because I was one day just charging the laptop while using it and suddenly the charger died and has not worked since. Purchased another and it has the same heat problem (both chargers were from different manufacturers). Thus, to prevent my current charger from frying itself, I either have to charge the device when it is off or in standby (does not get as hot this way) or charge it for several minutes and then unplug it to let it cool down.

I read online that someone recommended removing the battery and just letting the charger power the device to see if it persists. Tried that today and stressed the CPU and found that the charger, without the battery in the laptop, does not get anywhere NEAR as hot, even with the CPU under full load. Is this a sign of a bad battery? Of course I would just order a new battery to find out, but I'd rather not just burn 20 bucks and hope that it fixes the issue. In fact, I wanted to ask this: Is there any way I might could repair my current battery so that the charger will not get super hot, assuming that is the issue?

Yahoo Answers proved to be useless with this, so I thought some folks here could help me. Let me know what you guys think.

Thanks!

 

Is the replacement you ordered a genuine asus charger? if not there is your problem! If so there is probably something wrong with the battery or the charging circuit.

 

I do believe so. I tried to make sure it was because I actually though that was the problem as well (I guess not ) I mean it has the official Asus logo on it and fits fine, so yeah.
Plus, like I said, it doesn't get hot when the battery is out.

When you say charging circuit, do you mean something within the actual battery pack or the jack that I plug the charger into? Those are about the only small(er) replaceable things :\ I don't know how I'd really replace anything else.

 

Charging the battery and using the system is the most stressful time for the adapter, this will make it hot.

 

But should it get SO hot to the point of pain when you touch it? I've never seen any laptop charger get this hot before.

 

Does the AC adapter get so hot even when you have the battery in and it is already fully charged?

Are there any problem signs with your battery like taking a long time to charge, or reporting charging even when it has charged to 99/100%, or other oddities?

Hot AC adapters are somewhat normal, but without knowing exactly how hot it is hard to know if yours is a problem or not. I've had a few Eee PCs and they come with cheap crappy AC adapters that run mega hot.

 

When the battery is already fully charged, no not really. It cools down significantly while it is trickle charging.

As for other oddities, I don't know how fast this thing should be charging. It charges about +1% approximately every 2 minutes. Not sure if that's slow or normal. Well last night it did something similar to saying that it was fully charged when not. It charged to about 97% and then just started trickle charging (didn't move from 97%) and the charger got cool. It didn't say that it was fully charged though...

Well I can tell you it gets pretty hot. I've never seen another eee pc charger, but every other laptop charger I've seen has never gotten so hot.

If they're always this hot, I may just consider installing a fan onto the charger.

 

Yeah that's normal for asus, they stop charging around 95-99% and just trickle to 100% from there. If your battery or its chip or something in the circuit was defective you'd see some really bizarre signs with regard to charging status and capacity.

All of my Eee and other netbooks have had pretty hot chargers, I think it may be because they're so small. Also my X220 charger will get super hot if I'm really stressing the system, almost as hot as those netbook chargers. But I've never taken a measurement of the temperature. It makes me curious about the normal temperature ranges.

 

All right. I guess I'll just have to deal with it then. I fear though that it will burn itself out like the last one did...Still considering putting a fan on there. I don't think any charger should get that hot. So unless you have any other recommendations, I guess I'm good to go.

By any chance, do you happen to know if I could solder the wires of a small PC fan to the power on the board of the charger power supply? That'd make things very simple if I could.

 

I've never seen that done, and I'd be a little weary of soldering the AC adapter's board unless I knew exactly how it was designed. You might try to place the adapter on its side so that it has the maximum amount of surface area to cool itself and see if that helps.

 

#1 bricks can get super hot to the touch. There may or may not be a shut off feature, but the fact is these things can push up to 95 watts and have the worst passive cooling.

#2 previous laptops I would have said they do trickle charge, but I believe my asus q55 actually stop charging altogether once it reaches full. It would explain why I see the battery charge drop to %95ish and then the battery goes from solid to the charging (battery fills from empty to full animation) . Seems like the most ideal way imo, rather then a continuous charge, even if it is a small one.

 

Yeah you're right, most regular ASUS lappys will only charge to 95% as a feature to prevent overcharging. It's mentioned in most of the user manuals. They can still get past 95% sometimes though.

 

If you are worried you can always get a brick with the same tip and voltage but higher amps. It will be stressed less and be cooler but also bigger.

 

Ignore this for now

 

I see. That's interesting. I may look into that actually.

Does anyone else here know if I could soldier fan wires to the charger brick's power supply contacts? I'd love to be able to just put a little fan on this thing, but the issue would be trying to find a good way to power the fan. That would be the easiest since batteries would just be way to annoying for such a thing.
Also, if there's a better idea for how to power the fan, I'd like to hear that as well.
I could easiIy make this charger work but just cutting some small vents in one side and throwing on a fan on the other side.

I also again want to stress that the charger is literally getting too hot to hold for me than a few seconds. No joke, it's getting very very hot. In fact, I just tested a minute ago and even with the computer shut off, the charger still heats up like crazy. Are you sure this is okay? I just can't figure out why it is getting so hot, considering the battery doesn't seem to be showing signs of malfunction. I'll do some more testing tomorrow. My biggest worry is that the charger will burn itself out (like I think the other one did) and I'll have to spend more money on another charger, and the cycle will repeat. I mean I'm fine with it being hot as long as it won't destroy itself.

Thanks for all the help so far guys. I really appreciate it.

 

Bricks are sealed for safety reasons. It would be cheaper and safer just to get a slightly larger brick, there are also slim OEM bricks up to 100-120 w.

 

Okay. Do you mind pointing me in the right direction here? Not exactly sure where to start looking nor what exactly I should search for, and if you could give me a link to an example of one that you're talking about, that would help a lot. The specs of my current power supply brick are: AC Input: 100 ~ 240V 50~60Hz
DC Output: 19V 2.1A 40Watts

 

Coolermaster slim 90w would be good for instance. Avoid cheap knock offs on ebay. FSP do a 65w small brick too but i have not used one before.

 

Okay. Definitely considering that. Do you happen to know if the Coolermaster would for sure fit the Asus Eee PCs? I assume it would but I'd hate to get one and find out that it doesn't lol. I think I'd just give up at that point XD

 

If I also may ask, the higher amperage of the chargers you're speaking of will not fry my motherboard and battery will they? Looking at the 65w coolermaster, which appears to have about 3.5A and my current charger has 2.1A. Output of course.

 

Electronics only draw what they need.

 

Okay, I have some final questions and I'll be set.

1. Will a 65watt charger be good enough for the heat problem? I found it (a legit cooler master charger) on ebay for about 20 US dollars, opposed to the normal 30 dollars. However, I fear that I'll get it and it will still get very hot. Should I aim for the 90 watt?
2. Do you know for sure if the cooler master will have a plug that is made to fit the Asus Eee PCs? Particularly the 1005 models.
3. Does Targus make a reliable universal charger?
Thanks for all your help.

 

It's a 50% increase on your current brick, doubling it should not be required. Slimmer bricks will tend to get a bit hotter of course.

Coolermaster list tips on their website.

No idea.