wird battery problem

Ladies and gents... I'm experiencing a weird laptop battery behavior.

First let me say that i've been out of the country for 6 months for work reasons.... and left my personal laptop at home since i do need it while i'm using work one... the personal laptop has been on my desk at home for 6 months (unplugged but battery in). make of the lappy is Toshiba and to be honest i dont use it that much... prior to my leave i could get about 2-3 hours of life out of the battery..... the laptop+battery is about 3 years old but not used very much.

now .... fast forward 6 months to now.... my battery no longer seems to work as such.

Laptop runs perfectly fine when AC power plugged in.... battery seems to charge however VERY slowly... think like <1% charge per hour.... i started charging this thing at noon sunday last week as of noon on monday its at 20%..... i used batterymon to check out what's up and while i see its capacity increasing (charge) the charge rate is 0.... when i unplug the AC the laptop shuts off immediately.... the laptop will not start off battery power

.... the charging light is lit up as if the battery was charging.


SOOO... my question is .... is this some sort of deep discharge condition of the battery? is there any tricks i can do to fix this? (i tried taking out the battery, unplugging ac and holding power button for 5 minutes... didnt work)

I dont think its my power adapter since the laptop runs fine on AC. like i said i dont use the laptop all that much and it was fine prior to me leaving it for 6 months.

... i'm not against buying a new battery but i'm against buying a new battery if its likely not the battery that's broken.... toshiba wants $139 CAD for a new battery which isn't exactly cheap... if that's the route i just wanna be somewhat confident that the batter is at fault.

This is what batterymon displays

Status: "Charging" (this said "N/A"... couple hours ago)
Manufacturer:
Device Name: PA3399U-2BAS/BRS
Serial #: N/A
Uniqueid: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Time Remaining: A/C Power
Battery Temperature: N/A
Date of Manufacture: N/A
Type of use: normal operation
rechargable: Yes
Chemistry: Lithium ION
Design Capacity: 26415 mWh (1761 mAh)
Full Charge Capacity: 26415 mWh (1761 mAh)
Current Capacity: 5160 mWh (344 mAh)
Alert Levels: W: 0/ L:0
Critical Bias: None
Charge Cycles: N/A
Voltage 15.00 Volts
Charge Rate: 0 mW


it seems that the battery is taking charge but not releasing it.... im really hoping its not the circuit boards on the laptop itself

 

well ... it seems I have resolved the issue by getting a new battery.... bought an original toshiba oem extended battery (arm and a leg!) but the battery charges normally and laptop stays powered when AC power is cut. i guess the 6 months wait without inactivity has rendered the battery useless... could've been other factors too... like simply the battery's electronics failed... oh well... 180 CAD later i'm back in business..

tx all for reading.

 

Good to know that it's sorted. And $180 CAD is carzy expensive, I can't believe batteries cost that much. How many cells is it?

 

By the way, when you are not going to use a battery for a long-ish period of time, store the battery in a cool place (not cold) charged at ~40%.

 

it's a 9cell 6000mAH battery


it's a lithium ion battery... when i first charged it it showed capacity of 6000 mAH.... then i let it fully discharge ..... when i rebooted after powering up it says i have like 5895 mAH.... this is on its 2nd charge.... do these things lose their capacity so damn quickly or can i recalibrate it somehow?

on "power saver" setting... screen dimmed to max i get almost 6 hours out of it.

 

Yes, they can lose their quality a little bit over time. There is a calibration tool that you can use, but I can't remember the name...

 

i know they do lose some quality over time but this has dropped 1.75% of its capacity in a single charge... i'm scared to fully discharge it if it's gonna drop that much each time. i've read that the last couple % of charge has to be slow charged... could that be the reason for not being able to obtain 6000mAH ?

 

I know this is going to sound strange, put the battery in a plastic zip bag and make sure as much of the air is out as possible. Put the battery in the freezer for 3-4 days. Let it reach room temperature for 5-6 hours after you take the battery out of the freezer and try charging it again. If the battery charges callibrate it and let us know how it went.