Battery will only charge to 47%

My company provides me with a Compaq nw8440 with XP (SP2) installed. In addition, I've set up another partition that I use to boot LInux off of. Recently, my company sent me a new battery as the other one wasn't holding a charge. This was after 2 years of use. It worked great for the first week that I had it, but now it will only charge up to 47% and then stop. This occurs in both the Linux and XP partitions. What could the issue be? Bad battery? Hardware problem (motherboard)?

Thanks in advance,

Rich

 

Does the charge light on the laptop stay on when the battery reaches 47%, or does that light shut off at 47%?

You most likely need either a new battery or a new AC Adapter.

 

The charge light on the laptop stays on. Yellow. It's like it's in a perpetual state of charging.

 

Your battery is dying. Usually it shouldn't wear out this quickly.

 

do you know the history of the battery that they sent you ?
new in a warper ?
what type of battery did they give you ?

 

This was a new Li-Ion battery in a shrink-wrapped package. I think the battery was an after-market brand as I had never heard of it. BTI Technology is what it says on it.

 

I would never trust off-brand rechargeable batteries, especially not for laptops. I've had luck with digital camera off-brand batteries in the past; however, laptop batteries undergo a lot more stress, wear, and tear than a digital camera battery.

I would try a brand-new official hp-brand battery in your nw8440 to see how well it works. I'm on my second battery on my nw8440 (both batteries have been HP-brand), and after almost 3 months of use, it's still going strong.

 

How long do batteries last? And is it better to keep the power plugged in 100% of the time while at home or using the battery and then charging it?

 

Thanks, Teraforce, I'll get my corporate IT dept. to send me another one, HP brand of course.

Thanks!