I don't know what to make of this (battery / Samsung NC10)

Hi guys,

This is about the battery in the Samsung NC10 netbook.

I had this netbook for a couple of years but didn't use it much, actually not at all for over a year. When it was last used the the battery could last for 5 hours. I usually don't use the battery on my computers as they are always plugged into the main. When I used it is often to calibrate it by doing a full charging discharging cycle once every a few months.

A few days ago I took this netbook out and installed Windows 8 on it. The installation went fine.

Today I switched the netbook on and used it without noticing that the charger was not plugged to the main. The netbook stayed on for over 3 hours before it switched itself off.

I plugged the charger to the main and turned the netbook on, but for some reason the battery doesn't want to charge. And I know that a battery doesn't usually die suddenly. It deteriorates and holds less and less charge before it stops charging all together.

Windows 8 power icon indicates that the battery is plugged in, that its charge is 0%, and that it's not charging. The battery LED in the front of the netbook shows that the battery is charged. When I unplug the charger the netbook stays off for a short while before it turns itself off.

Can you guys explain what happened here as I don't get it?
Do you think that the battery is dead?

 

Do you have the proper power management drivers installed for the platform?

Have you let the system try to charge with it off (before even plugging it in)?

Have you tried removing the battery and power and leaving the system sit there for at least an hour, then install the battery, then plug in the power connector to the system, then plug the power adaptor to the wall outlet (and leave it OFF all this time...) and see if it charges?

If yes to all the above; the battery did just die suddenly (I've seen it happen a few times).


Oh, and when it turned off after the 3 hours... how long did you take to plug it in to recharge it? If more than a few minutes, that is probably what killed it (ime).


Good luck.

 

Yes the ACPI drivers are properly installed. I've re-installed them as follows:
1- Switched the netbook off and removed the battery
2- Powered the netbook. Went to the Device Manager in Windows and deleted Microsoft ACPI driver for the battery.
3- Turn the netbook off. Remove the charger. Put the battery back in. Plug the charger again and switch the netbook back on.
I found the above procedure in Microsoft own website plus a few other places.

That said I don't think its a driver issue since the LED light is always green while it should be orang when the battery is (i.e. should be in the present case) charging. It is always green even when I go straight into the BIOS menu instead of letting Windows boot.

I didn't yet. Will try it tonight since I'm using this netbook right now.

No I didn't do the above but I did remove the battery and press the power button for about 15 seconds. I also went into the BIOS and loaded up its default settings.

I just remembered that one should press the power button at least 30 seconds. So I have to redo the above.

I plugged the charger in the main as soon as the laptop went off.


The weird thing is, when I plug the charger into the netbook the orange LED that indicates that the battery is charging turns on for a second or two before the light goes to green. I'm not sure what that means since the minimum charging time when the battery is flat is 2-3 hours. I really don't understand this. I've owned laptops with dead batteries, old batteries, batteries with damaged cells, and none of them behave the way I've described so far.

 

Thanks for the details. This is puzzling...

Try the couple of suggestions left and keep us posted.

Is it possible that the power connector/motherboard got damaged somehow?

 

I took the battery out and left the netbook unplugged overnight (about 8 hours), and there is no improvement to the situation

I've noticed something. I think when the orange LED is one for that 1 second the battery does charge a bit since the netbook can stay on with the charger unplugged for about 5 seconds.

I haven't taken apart the netbook yet. From the exterior the power socket looks undamaged. I'll take the netbook apart and check it.

 

I would try BatteryInfoView or something similar to check the battery under Windows first. Also it's not bad to check the battery info under a diff. operating system even running of a disk or thumb drive. Try to get as much info you can about the battery from diff. sources.
I'm guessing you've already tried the Fn key + F2 as explained here: Battery Is Not Charging. This netbook looks ultraportable, the DC jack will not be soldered directly onto the M/B, it'll have a jack and solid wires running to the M/B... I highly doubt it you'll find anything wrong there. There might be a problem there if the CMOS battery is dead. You said you removed the battery and the BIOS went to defaults.

 

It could also be that a protection circuit inside the battery gave up the ghost and the cells may be okay...

Do you have any (authorized) battery rebuilders in your area?

 

The Acer ZG5 had a protection circuit in the battery that would occasionally trip, and reflashing the BIOS would, believe it or not, solve it. I bought several "dead" ZG5 batteries and fixed them that way. Could there be something similar in the NC10?

 

I tried with BatteryCare. It shows that the charge level is 0% and that the wear level is 100%. That looked odd to me as a battery wear level doesn't increase this much in a short level of time. I mean a battery doesn't go from a situation where it hold a 3 hours charge to 0 after 1 discharge.

Yes I did and 'Samsung's Easy Display Manager' showed a charge of 0% too.


I would like to confirm one more time that during that short second or two when the orange LED turns ON the battery does charge but only to keep the netbook on for about 4-5 seconds.

I've taken this netbook apart in the past, but it was so long that I don't remember if the power jack is soldered or not directly into the Motherboard. That said I'm pretty confident even without taking the laptop apart that the power jack is sound.

The BIOS didn't reset to default after I have removed the battery. I forced that to happen by going into the BIOS and selecting "Load default setting".

Also I know that the CMOS battery is fine. I left the netbook unplugged overnight 2 nights ago and the date and time were not reset. I'm trying to say that I know what happens when the CMOS battery of a computer is dead and I can safely say that the one in this netbook is fine.

I'm gearing toward the same conclusion as you.

Nop. Where I'm now I can't even source a replacement battery without having someone from aboard purchasing it and shipping it over to me.

The first thing I tried to do when this happened was to upgrade the BIOS. The BIOS file has been sitting in my desktop for the last 3 days but I can't install it. It refuse to install because the battery is flat. The error message says that the charge should be at least 30% to allow the BIOS upgrade to go through.

So guys, if you know how to upgrade the BIOS with a flat battery, please do let me know.

 

Does the battery charge when the laptop is off and plugged in?

 

For a second or two it's orange then it indicates green as if it finished charging the battery.

This makes me think the A/C adapter could be the culprit here. I'm sure there's a way to stress test the charger as in: turn the brightness all the way up, run something graphic and CPU intensive for a while, plug in devices in all the USB ports, plug in an external monitor and clone the display on both. Monitor the temp. of the A/C adapter while doing this. The idea is to simulate a "charging battery" load and see if the A/C will pass... or you could just try a diff. A/C adapter if available.

 

The charger is fine and sound since I have already tested the netbook with a another charger and it is the same as with the original one. The 2nd charger is from an old Samsung laptop that I have... it was made in 2001 and beside its dead battery it is working as new

After an intensive search on the web I managed to find DOS version of the latest BIOS.
While the upgrade didn't fix the battery it fixed some other bugs that I had with Windows 8. So the upgrade was not a waste of time

 

Update:

I had to reboot the netbook (because Windows 8 has been giving me some hard time. It simply doesn't like to wake up once the netbook goes to sleep), and once I did, I noticed that the red/orange LED didn't turn on. This is the LED showing that the battery is charging.

I turned the netbook off and then back on a few times but the LED that used to turn on 1 to 2 seconds didn't want to turn on. I turned the netbook off again, removed the charger and pressed the power button for about 30 seconds. And what would you know, the orange LED turned on and stayed on this time. When this happened I checked the power meter in Windows and it was saying that the battery was charging and that it's current charge was 99%. After about 1 hour I got tired and switched the netbook off. The orange LED was still on when I went to bed.

When I woke up several hours later, the orange LED turned green to indicate that the battery now is fully charged. Windows indicated that the charging process has stopped and the remaining charge is now 100% instead of 0% as previously . I haven't tried to discharge the battery yet to test it. I'll do that later.

In the meantime I'd like to hear your observations, comments and so on. Also I would like to hear your view on what's the best method to calibrate a battery. In the past I used to do a full charge and then a full discharge. Here, I mean discharging the battery until the computer cannot be turned on again unless the charger is plugged in. I've read that my way of doing it was not good as one should recharge before the remaining charge reaches 5%.

 

If the battery holds any kind of usable charge, I would simply use it as is.

'Calibrating' a battery has only caused them to loose capacity ime - simply a waste of time.

It is possible all your efforts 'reset' the issue that was causing the battery to not charge (I too have been lucky like that a couple of times...).

I would not push it any further (my luck) - I would just enjoy that it now works.


Hope that it can really hold a charge (even 60-90 minutes is good: it will act as a UPS if nothing else).


Good luck.

 

That's why i asked if you tried charging the netbook while it was off. I saw no mention of it in your previous posts.

 

Hi guy,

I just finished testing my battery and it's not looking good despite the fact that it held the charge for 5 hours and 45 minutes. Yes you're reading it correctly the held charge under normal use (internet browsing and other staff) was nearly 6 hours.

I think that the battery circuitry has gone bad because if it was the battery cells then the held charge will be way less than the 5+ hours. Also, while using the battery and even after 5 hours of use Windows and Samsung's own's monitoring utility indicated that the remaining charge was still 100%. Also I plugged the charger half way through the test and the battery didn't want to charge. Another fact is that Windows didn't notify me when the battery reached a critical level. Also, the netbook stayed on (i.e. didn't go to sleep, or into hibernation mode) until the battery was completely flat. Last, now the battery is refusing to charge while displaying the same signs as described in my first posts .

If the cells were at fault I know that replacing the faulty ones amongst them will fix the battery pack. But I don't know if the battery circuitry can be fixed !?

Is there anyone who knows about fixing batteries' circuitries?

Best

 

Hi guys,

I tried to recharge the battery but initially I couldn't. My guts were telling me that I was not able to do so because the battery was not fully drained. Remembering that NiHM and Li-Ion battery had tendency to drain faster under cold temperatures, I put the battery in the freezer for a couple of days.

The result is that the battery is now charging. That said, the battery level in Windows still shows a battery level of 0%. Like before it will likely jump straight to 100% once the battery is fully charged.

So what do you think? Is it a case of a bad battery cell? Or is it the case of a damaged battery circuitry?

 

I seem to be having the exact same problem. Except I cannot get mine to charge in the manner you did. Did you find a solution or locate the problem?
Of course I am on vacation and the sammy is the only computer i brought

Please advise & Thanks!

 

I'm also having the same problem as others here & the OP's problem is 99% the same as mine,except I have the netbook running on XP from day 1.
Yesterday the netbook battery kept saying 100% & the hours & minutes would go up & down,but the 100% never changed.
Today the netbook won't go on without it being plugged in with the charger.
This has to be a software fault as I agree with the OP that the battery can't work for hours 1 day & then just stop the next.
It's like if the netbook thinks the battery is 100% charged even with it not being.
Should I just buy another battery or do you guys think the new battery will also not charge ?

 

There is a battery calibration function in the BIOS.

Run the computer on mains power and boot into the BIOS (tap the F2 key a few times immediately after pressing the power button).

Then find the battery calibration function, then pull out the power plug and start the calibration. The BIOS then discharges the battery until genuinely empty. After that, fully recharge the battery.

Of course, this won't work if the battery is completely dead.

John

 

That's the problem we're having,as the battery is stating 0% & you need a minimum of 30% to calibrate.
Looking on google this problem is massive with this netbook :-/

 

Hi all, I too have the same problem, battery just died the other day and now when its plugged in the status LED is just Red but the Samsung power management says the battery is 100%, in fact it has never said anything other than 100% since.

I too tried plugging in it in for hours and I was lucky to get 1 minute out of it. So I looked at the battery terminals on the netbook with the battery removed and see 3.2v and 2.6v (if I remember rightly, was a week or two ago) so thought must be battery then so I ordered a new one from what looked like a good UK website
SAMSUNG NC10 battery and it arrived two days later. Plugged it in and great, the batteries already charged, it even says / thinks its a Samsung battery in the device manager properties and it says 100% on Battery Power monitor.
Used it for two hours just on the battery then it switched off instantly and won't charge. This time though the status LED flashes between Green and Red. Here we go again.

So I write this, one to say probably don't buy a new battery with this issue even though the link I added is a good site to get one from, and two (as Google has failed) does anyone know what the status lights actually mean? Green = Power on, Red = charging (or not), Red/Green = charging or a battery issue??

as a side thought, these batteries are charged by monitoring the current drawn when charging (holds a fixed Voltage across the cells) and says 100% when the current drawn is down to a certain level which means the battery is 100% charged. If a battery is not charging because its very dead it won't draw much current and thus won't charge, catch 22? any thoughts?

Cheers