asus power issues? bios battery charge??

Hi guys i have recently bought a z53jc

its great however it doesnt work unless plugged into power.

i find this very very weird. i saw in the bios there was a battery charge thing? ive tried that, but is there some way to switch power on or off so it only runs on external?

please help me here. thhanks

 

im trying out the "battery calibration utility" which apprently "recalibrates the gauge of the battery"... it charges it to full then discharges to empty... weird. and i wonder if this fixes my problem?

 

It wouldn't be a laptop if you couldn't operate it off batteries only.

Either the batteries are bad or something isn't charging.

 

You can try downloading RMClock and check the battery property page. Does it show the battery? What are the characteristics (designed max charge, current max charge)?

 

where do i get that program? i just ran that thing in bios for about 4 hours and nothing happened... still needs to be plugged in

 

google is your friend for getting the program.

Just to cover the obvious.... you have inserted the battery into your computer, right? If it's new, the battery comes in a separate plastic bag in the box, it's not inserted into the computer. Sorry if this appears dumb...

 

Side question - I recently calibrated my battery through the bios on my A8Js, the steps it followed were as follows:

Plug in AC adapter and charge to 100%
Unplug AC adapter and discharge

After I returned to the PC I re-plugged in the AC adapter and booted directly to Vista. There was no battery re-charge step required, is this normal? I question this because Vista now tells me the battery at 99% has over 21 hours of life in it... I can only wish this was true. Did I miss a step during the calibration? Is there something further that should be done?

 

Recalibration does not include a recharge step, however the battery is empty at the end of the process therefore it should start to charge as soon as you plug the notebook back in.

It is possible that calibration messed up your battery readings. I can only suggest you download RMClock as well, take a screenshot of the battery readings, and post it so that we can see what can be done further.

 

Unfortunately RMClock and Vista 64 don't work together nicely. I scoured the net for work-arounds and tried all suggestions with no success, it seems recent Vista updates have blocked the workarounds from working.

Is there another way besides RMClock?

 

Yeah but it's complicated. You need to either:
- start the performance monitor, add signals for the Max Battery Charge, Designed Battery Charge, Charge Current.
- or boot from live linux (e.g., Knoppix) and check the ACPI details, I think:

/proc/acpi/bat/BAT0/info
/proc/acpi/bat/BAT0/state
or something similar.

 

The options in performance monitor include:

Charge Rate, Discharge Rate, Remaining Capacity, Tag, Voltage.

Charge Rate is currently listed at 0, running off AC power
Discharge Rate is at 0
Remaining Capacity: 46,574.000 (maximum)
Tag: 2.000 (average, minimum, maximum)
Voltage: 12,521 (maximum)

Also in each setting there is a field for Duration, which reads 1:40 in each.

 

I don't know whether MobileMeter will have functional issues with V64, but it is another option to give you all the data that EBE suggested you look for.

 

I was never able to get MobileMeter to work in Vista, so I doubt it will work.

 

Updated stats after a 40% discharge:

Charge Rate: all 0
Discharge Rate: Average - 26,350.00
Remaining Capacity: Average - 27,200.00
Tag: All 2.000
Voltage: Average - 11,117.000

 

Your numbers look right.
Remaining Capacity on full: 46,574.000 = 46 Watts-hour. You probably have a 6-cell battery, or a somewhat worn-out 8-cell.

Remaining at 40% is pretty much 40% so no problem there.

Discharge Rate: Average - 26,350.00 you have an average discharge rate of 26 Watts. Again, normal (for a current ASUS laptop).

Now, back to your problem. The fact that your batt always shows 99% and is no longer charging is not very worrying. It's just that calibration went a bit amiss, and the computer didn't quite catch the max charge of the battery (the computer believes that the battery can hold 1% more charge than what it actually can).

What is worrying is the reported 21 hours left. For how long does it stay like that? The number will be inaccurate for the first few samples read from the battery. Could you please watch how the Discharge Rate evolves when you unplug the computer when the batt is fully charged? It should settle rapidly to around the 26 average watts (well, +-5 is no problem). For the computer to read 21 hours left, it would need to be on the order of watts.

Even if that is so, the only thing it means is the batt is not communicating properly with the computer. Physically it seems to work ok.

 

If you start the notebook with the battery in, and the A/C adapter in, load Windows, and then just unplug it, does the computer stay on? If not, it's the battery, If it does, then it's something with the notebook (just my guess). If it's the notebook I would update the BIOS if possible (check ASUS member page downloads for updates) - Otherwise RMA the battery only - I RMA'ed my notebook and it took a beating, ASUS' RMA/Repair shop in North America is horrible IMHO (They are extremely rude, and not very delicate with the returned machines) - They actually replaced my keyboard when I RMA'ed it when I had a screen problem, which tells you they probably broke something or a few somethings when dismantling it, and they also yelled at my mother because they tried to say they were sending it back because there was nothing wrong with it and she asked that they wait to speak with me directly before sending it back. I was trying to get a dead on arrival replacement because the monitor had bad problems and it took a long time and a lot of phone calls to get them to finally do it. Anyways, sorry to rant, but that's my experience with their RMA process. Let me know if my information wasn't helpful.