W3V Switching from Mod Bay Batt. to Main, no go

Hey I can't search for anything on the forums so I'm asking....

When I run down my modular bay battery and have my main battery in, my laptop just powers down... It doesn't detect my main battery.

Also when I try and start my laptop with both the main battery and modular battery in, it won't start, but when i take the main battery out, then start it , it works. Any ideas? thanks

 

I sometimes have trouble with my batteries switching. It just shuts off when the modular battery dies, however my problems are occasional, not every time. You might try having the battery rma'ed.

 

I can think of nothing except making sure you run the latest BIOS and ACPI drivers versions... ASUS seem to have a lot of problems with their battery management firmware.

 

hmm does RMA'd mean "return to manufacturer"?

lol the latest bios is from 2005, I'm pretty sure i have it.... I can't seem to find the ACPI drivers on ASUS website though..

is there no other magic "switch" or refresh button for my battery?? this sucks!

 

Yep RMA means request for manufacturer assistance or something like that Basically repair.

There is no magic switch... the notebook should switch to main batt as soon as modular discharges. Also the fact that it doesn't boot w/ modular is a sign of trouble.

wrt driver download. I found it.

support.asus.com
Click Download
search in searchbox to the left w3v
click the model # in the results
click "Drivers"
the first drivers are the ATK /ACPI drivers

 

thanks ebe but i forgot to mention I'm running Windows Vista, so I think it's a different ATK ACPI driver which I have installed already... i hope it's not because of Vista that the battery isn't working, because my old one worked ...

 

I would highly doubt that it is Vista, because if I can't boot from the modular battery than it means it shouldn't be an OS issue. I would recommend you try to do a calibration from the BIOS with both batteries in there. Sounds like a bad/faulty chip in the modular batter.

 

Sorry, it's not the modular battery, it's the main battery ;/

Does that change things?

I will try calibration D:

 

It does change things in that it seems the main batt is at fault.

If it's under warranty (which I doubt since it's a W3V) I would try getting it replaced from warranty.

In any case, try the batt calibration on the main from the BIOS (remove modular, run calibration). See if that fixes things.

After which you can run a calibration with both batteries in... but I doubt that'd improve things.

 

well.... it WAS working for a little bit!!! I had the modular bay out, then I put the computer in hibernate, unplugged the AC, then the main battery let the laptop power on and stay on....

this is weird. why?!?

 

I think the BIOS cannot communicate properly with both batteries at the same time. It manages with one of them, though.

It might be because of bad coding in the BIOS, on the main battery, or on the modular battery. There's no good way to tell...

Just bad coding... have I mentioned that ASUS firmware programmers are computer-science dropouts?

 

lol, I think you're right, I have to remove one of the batteries to turn on the laptop, then re-insert the other battery ONLY once the laptop is on so that the computer can detect it.. hopefully it doesn't stay like this :/

btw thanks for your support