battery fully charged but laptop dies when AC unplugged

Hi everyone,

I have a samsung np550p5c laptop which I bought at the beginning of the summer 2012. A few nights ago, something happened and I had the problem mentioned in the title. When the laptop's on, it says the battery is fully charged but it powers out the milisecond I disconnect the AC adapter. If anyone could come up with a solution, I'd appreciate it.

To make it easier for you, here is some more info about the situation:

My roommate has the exact same model. I attached his battery into my laptop and it worked perfectly. But my battery didn't work properly when attached to his laptop.

I tried loading default BIOS settings - no luck.

I CANNOT do a full recharge cycle as hundreds of other resources suggest, because as soon as I disconnect the power cord, the laptop dies. I could try letting the battery drain by itself but it would take months...

I also ruled out the charger. The laptop works just fine on AC power without the battery. Even under heavy load(photoshop and battlefield 3 running simultaneously!).

Once I saw the battery light under the touchpad alternate between green and red light but I don't know what that means. It never happened again.

Before all this started to happen, the battery worked perfectly. 5 days ago the laptop could run 3-3,5 hours on it's own battery, so I don't think that it was me who slowly killed the battery.

Thanks in advance

 

I looks for certain you have a faulty battery, but you can Download HWmonitor and install it, then check the battery voltage and wear level, if the battery voltage is under 9volts your battery is faulty.

CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting

John.

 

Thanks for replying in such a short time.

Battery voltage is >12V, I checked with another battery monitor.

Cheers(and please save my battery! I am a student I don't wanna buy another one )

edit: oh wait! since I can't run the laptop on the battery, the power cord was connected when I checked the voltage. The software may have measured the voltage coming from the adapter. I cannot think of a way to measure the voltage of the battery itself

 

That is the battery voltage which is fine, what is the wear level?

EDIT : If your notebook is still in warranty, ring samsung and get them to send you a new battery.

John.

 

Sorry for misreading on my previous post. Your laptop is fine. It's battery failure.

Sent from my LT30at using Tapatalk 2

 

The wear level is 0%.

Whoa that doesn't sound good. But if my motherboard or charger board was bad, wouldn't my battery work fine on my roommate's laptop?

 

Your battery is dead, your notebook is most likely fine, it just strange the battery dies so quickly, how ofter do you use it on the battery?

John.

 

Often enough to say that the problem came out of nowhere. I used to take it to lectures and it would run all day without charging. And when I'm going to use it for 5-6 hours straight, I remove the battery after it's fully charged, so it's not overcharging or exposure to high voltage...
The day before the unexplicable happened, we had a poker party and the laptop was on the table all night running on the battery. I did not drop the battery, I did not spill any liquid or caused a short circuit and I did not tinker with it... It warned me about the low battery level after running a good 3 hours, I plugged the cable and turned it off. The morning after, my baby was sick

 

You only get between 300-500 full charges out of a battery, and every time you run low so the notebook will not turn on without charging it, you take the chance of damaging one of the cells in the battery, does your samsung have a battery care feature, because charging to 100% damages the battery as well, lots of notebooks, you can set them to stop charging at 60%-90% it depends on what you want, if you only charged your notebook to 80% and never discahrged it below say 40% you could ge 1000 to 1500 charges out of the battery, but heat also damages the battery and also as soon as your battery was made in the factory it starts to get old, even if never use it will only last for about 3 years before 50% of the battery is dead or 50% wear level, but also sometimes battery`s just die for no good reason.

If you want more information check the website below.

How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University

John.

 

thanks, these are all good information.

I saw a battery charging limit setting in the BIOS which stops charging at 80%, but it is disabled because I need it to be 100% charged when I leave home in the morning.
I never let any of my electronic devices' battery empty out. As soon as they drop below 10% I plug them in(should I let them turn themselves off?). Every 2-3 months I do a complete charge cycle too.
And I always use a cooling pad and monitor my system's temperature levels when under heavy load. Guess the battery died despite my love and care(or samsung sold me a baaad bad battery)...

 

If it`s still in warranty get samsung to send you a replacment.

John.

 

I will be home for christmas. I could pay a visit to the store I bought it and ask for a new one. Not that I don't trust you, but I will let another professional see it before I get a new battery. Maybe he can see or do something...

 

99% assurity is you have a failed cell. It will show under no load proper voltage but as soon as you get any load on it the cell collapses. This unfortunately happens, the only way to truely test this yourself is with a proper multi-cell ballancing lipo charger like used in the RC hobby and a proper hookup to charge it

 

It definitely looks as if the battery is dead, even if the chip inside the battery doesn't want to acknowledge the fact. The warranty covers the battery for one year so contact Samsung support and ask for a replacement. They may be satisfied by the evidence obtained by your test swapping the battery with another identical notebook.

John

 

Have you heard of some manufactures only covering battery`s with a 6 month warranty or did i just imagine it.

John.

 

Some might try to get away with a shorter period although last time I looked Samsung were still at one year. Indeed, a battery that dies completely can be argued to be defective manufacturing (which may come under consumer legislation that over-rides any warranty) rather than the usual debate about how much wear is acceptable during the warranty period. [Note to the UK members: The latest PC Pro claimed that a 2 year warranty is a standard EU requirement although the normal UK warranty is one year - something to investigate.]

John

 

Thank you all for your replies. I believe it hasn't been 6 months since I bought my laptop so samsung ought to replace the battery. I might ask for a completely new laptop, the wireless adapter and the GPU are also problematic with this one. Whenever I update the drivers the GPU goes insane and the built-in wireless adapter often fails to connect to internet. Re-installing drivers won't work, it's something physical not digital. I wonder how this laptop passed the quality control

btw I fear that if I do what you suggested, Samsung will see it as "tinkering" and I'll lose my warranty. Thanks though

 

Samsung`s build quality and some of it`s software are is not very good on the current notebooks, and i have had 10+ Samsung notebooks/netbooks over the years, I have switched to Lenovo because of this.

John.

 

I was looking for a high performance laptop and I was familiar with Samsung's high quality laptops. I've had 2 other Samsungs and they never had such stupid problems. 3 of my friends bought the exact same laptop and theirs are working just fine. Obviously mine was the worst of its family

 

DO NOT DO THIS, if under warranty. I am only saying it is the only way for you to tell. If it is under warranty it doesn't matter what is wrong, have them replace it..............

Edit; I am however a full morron, I have the required stuff and would test it out...................

 

Haha don't worry I always wait before the warranty to end to do weird stuff with my equipment.