Battery problem with sharp al27

I'm experiencing my first problem with my actius al27. The battery will only hold charge for about 30 min. I tried resetting it by letting it drain to complete death and then fully charging it again, but it didn't help. Luckily I purchased it at Sam's Club and they are going to exchange it, even after 5 months of use!

Anyone have an opinion as to why this happened? Anyone had a similar issue?

 

That's just weird for it to die like that...maybe a few cells burned out some how...at least you get a freebie, just inside that 6 month window.

Brian

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My 6 month old is just instantly croaking after maybe 45-60mins (50%). No warning, just black screen. No help at Sharp site on this.I may have to take it back to Sams.

Ted (no not him!) Kennedy

 

I'm having the exact same problem right now!? This just started happening less than a week ago. I take very good care of my notebook, so this must be a manufacturing flaw. Damn, I guess I have to go back to Sam's Club.

 

I have 2 Sharp AL 27s and both have developed battery problems. One is dead and can only be used with the 115 volt adapter. Worse, Sharp does NOT list a replacement battery. I am getting out the dremel to cut open a battery pack to see if they can be fixed. Inside usually one finds standard Li cells tack welded together. If so I will post a fix.

 

Did you cut it open?

I'd love to hear what you found and if you wre able to rebuild the battery pack.

Thanks in advance!

 

Just joined this forum in hope to find out any solution to the battery problem? I don't like the idea of shelling out $250 for a spare battery. Any suggestions?

 

I too have had this problem. It was too late for the warranty and sams will not replace. Is there anything else that I can do?
b

 

Same with mine, less than half an hour and its dead

 

I'm also interested to know what wm discovered after cutting open the battery pack...

 

The following battery company in Japan sells replacement battery packs for AL27 laptops:
http://www.batterymart.jp/shop/A277/XTCKveMI8/syoinfo/828

Also you can have your battery pack refilled with a higher capacity at BatteryRefill.com.
http://www.batteryrefill.com/laptops/sharp/CE-BL38.phtml

Hopefully this will help you.

 

Did you ever cut your battery pack and post a fix? My AL27 battery just died; and it was replaced for free about five months ago.

 

I had the same problem and i open the battery. Inside is nothing more than 6 cells (Li-Ion) and they seems to be old or not good quality in the very beginning. I have purchased new ones online and made "new" battery and all is working ok, since now. Almost year ago. No problems at all. But it is not to easy to do this if you don't` have some tools and knowledges. So for the second one i found out that on eBay you can purchase new original battery for around 95$ (shipping included) from China. And it is very good quality. No problems with it after 6 months. The seller name is: toys_cn and he is very professional too. Just look for BL38 in the search and you will see them. Hope that this was helpful for all the users of Actius PC AL27.

 

I might try to rebuild it myself. Can you tell me where you found the new cells online? Also, how do you recommend I open the battery?
Thanks very much for your help.

 

Had a similar issue with mine as well. I called them at 800-237-4277 and spoke to the customer service techs. Since I was within warranty they had me send in my broken battery and I had my new on in about 4 days if I recall no charge to me. They took care of the shipping of the battery to them and back again. They did need a reciept though.

 

The SHARP AL27 battery problem is a Bios Problem. There is a Bios update to prevent this from happening to a new battery... It will not help your bad battery. So before you you buy a new battery and use it, you should get the Bios update first !!! You will not find this on there website, you probably can call their 1-800-BeSharp and see if they can help... if not.. I have the bios update that I can Email to you in a zip format, you would have to unzip it and put it on a bootable disk... then run the "update.bat" file.

If you do need this Bios Update for the SHARP AL27 laptop, drop me an E-mail at [email protected] and put "SHARP AL27 BIOS UPDATE" in the subject line. I will send it within a day or two

 

April 19 2008 Battery blew suddenly after about a year of actual use

A big blow for me

Thanks to all here for advice.

If that BIOS update is available and SHARPMAN sees this please reply to my email, sent April 21 but nothing happened yet

Email was headed SHARP AL27 BIOS UPDATE Request to send if you still have it, please

Anyone else else know about this? Is it really the key to it not happening again?

Thanks in advance

 

Sorry for the very long delay in posting the results of my experiment. I was able to cut open the battery pack - Used a Fein Multimaster to make the thinnest cut. The cells were unlabelled and stacked with tack welds at the ends. I simply purchased replacement cells and tack welded them back in, everything exactly as found, using hot melt glue to secure all in place. Then I used silicone to glue the thin top back on. Charged each up and have been using them ever since. And I use my laptop often.

Just a few more words about the laptop - after almost 5 years of use, one is still working flawlessly and the other is starting to go buggy - heat I think. However, I also have a sony vaio high end laptop and a new dell, but my hands down favorite remains the Sharp AL27. The screen is as bright as ever, and the laptop is extremely comfortable to use. Nice job Sharp. I wish they were more popular - still get asked if it is new, mostly because of the white exterior and the very nice looking screen. My daughter still eyes it up, stating that she ought to have mine and I should be using her $1700 dell!

Speaking of my daughter, she is very hard on laptops and I purchased a Acer with an extended factory warranty. The laptop, for all it has been through is still working just fine. However, she uses hers very, very heavily and has gone through 4 hard drives. Acer has been wonderful, replacing the first with a seagate, then a hitachi, then a toshiba drive. Their factory service has been top notch. I would buy another just for their factory service.

And one more thing - please do not forget to purchase a usb drive and drive imaging software. Once a month please make a new drive image. I use the Bounceback software from CMS - expensive but very nice interface. If your drive goes down you can simply remove the backup drive from the case and install it in the laptop. In 15 minutes you are back up and running. Shop around for imaging software as there are many other good ones out there.

And good luck with your Sharp. After 5 years, I still love mine.

 

I got an email from sharpman with the bios update for my gf's AL27, i'd be happy to pass it on to anybody here who wants it.
I don't seem to have PM options and i don't really want to put my email out here for spambots to find, but if you post in this thread with your email address (make a disposable one or something) i'll email it to you.

EDIT:
Gf and I second the motion of it being a fantastic laptop, i'm very impressed with it.
Hers works very well, it only has two issues, one being that the refilled battery i got her a year ago for christmas is now dead (stupid bios), and the other being that she can't burn cd's or dvd's for some unknown reason.

All told, they're great laptops imo.

 

Can you send me the BIOS update my email is [email protected]

 

I would greatly appreciate you emailing this to me @ dscn AT carolina DOT rr DOT com Thanks!

 

Sorry about the long wait, i got caught up in christmas and such and forgot to check till now.

Both of you have emails

I can PM now, so if anybody else wants it, pm me. If you can't pm, post it here, i'm going to try to check it at least once a week.

 

Actually, i'll just host it.


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(You two above these posts got it emailed to you)
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