MAJOR battery issue

I will try to make this as short as possible but it's fairly complicated. Yesterday I was using my laptop on battery power like usual, nothing out of the ordinary, and when the battery indicator got in the 30% range I plugged the AC adapter in. As soon as I did, the indicator said "plugged in, not charging". I messed around with the power jack a bit, disconnected/reconnected it, and I even took out the battery and put it back in and still no luck. Then I took out the battery again and held the power button for 30 seconds and put it back in - still didn't work. Then I decided to test if the AC adapter works without the battery and of course it did not work at all - my system wouldn't turn on when plugged in with no battery.

I decided to dig around in my notebook so I took it apart and checked the placement of the power jack cables and just checked for any abnormalities. None whatsoever.

Now, what I did today is I took out the battery and disconnected the AC adapter from the power source and left everything disconnected for about 4 hours. Then I connected it all back together and guess what? It decides to start working. Upon starting the system, I was greeted with the check disk utility to check NTFS. The first time this happened to me, I pressed a key and bypassed the utility and then my system suddenly stopped charging again and it shut down. The second time I did this - I let the check disk utility run and the battery has been charging fine ever since.

I'm scared to mess with it anymore, I don't really know what to do. This is horrible timing, I need my notebook in these next 2 weeks more than ever! Anyone have any clue as to what's going on here?

 

You try plugging in the computer iwth the battery out and see how it responds? might help eliminate what teh problem is...

 

If you've never done it, you might want to think about calibrating the battery to your power meter - most people don't even know about it, much less how to do it. Your battery meter can lag significantly behind the actual discharge rate if it hasn't been calibrated, and it can give you a false reading about how much power is actually left in the battery. What it sounds like is that the battery was actually completely depleted - when you plugged it in, you noticed it didn't say it was charging, but if it was completely drained it might have taken a bit for it to start registering, especially if the meter is off from the actual battery charge value.
When you put it back in after a few hours, the battery could've had enough time to recover and get back to a charge level where it would let the system power up again.

I'm not saying it's the only possibility, but you should at least do it to rule it out. Do the simple stuff first, rather than the ridiculous like most people.

This procedure is for an HP PC battery calibration, but it should be the same on yours - you can always check your own system support site to be sure.

http://tinyurl.com/68o4d4

 

If it reads plugged in - not charging at 30%, and doesn't work on AC only, then logically it should be a problem with the charger itself, not the laptop or battery because the laptop IS detecting the charger, but there's just not the necessary voltage to charge (check with a multimeter if you have one and know how to use it)... Though it does sounds like an intermittent fault (I can't think of any way the disk-check utility should affect it).

If it happens again, see if you can find someone (a friend, or perhaps a dealer/repairer) with the same brand/model of charger and test your laptop on that. It should work fine - if it does, go buy yourself a new charger, if not, post back here what happens when you try it.

Hope that fixes it.

 

This sounds very reasonable, especially because my notebook died at about 1% which I've never seen before. It usually dies at like 6-8%. I'm gonna check out this link and post back with the results.

I figured it was the problem with the charger itself as well, because after all, if it doesn't power the notebook without the battery then it's either the charger or the wiring in the notebook. BUT the charger is currently charging my notebook just fine so it appears that neither the wiring nor the charger is the actual culprit.

 

No, actually, it could very well still be the charger - if it's got a bad circuit that is coming and going inside. Do you happen to remember how hot the AC adapter was when it stopped working for you, and did it routinely get very hot in the past?

 

Yeah it was actually incredibly hot at the time this little incident happened. I have noticed it to be hot in the past as well though so I cannot say if it's the same amount of heat or not. I would say that I felt maybe a bit more heat than before.

 

Then I stand by what I said - chargers these days are incredibly complex pieces of equipment compared to older ones, a fault, especially an intermittent one, won't necessarily kill it, just stop it from working in the way it should.

If it got that hot, there's a chance something got fried and it's malfunctioning, but only sometimes. Up to you though as to what you try.

 

Hmm I see. So has anyone had any experience with getting your charger replaced with Sager? I'm only on my 3rd month of warranty but I don't have time to send in my notebook so would they just send me a new charger just by me shooting them an email?

 

it depends who you bought your computer from. some will send you out a new charger and when you receive it you return the broken one and a few will charge you for it until they receive the broken one back and then reimburse you.

 

Ok I'll shoot XoticPC an email right now.