Vaio SR won't charge past 48% or 52%

For some reason my mom's VGN-SR240n seems to get "stuck" when charging. Recently, when I hover the mouse over the charge icon, it reports, "48% available (plugged in, charging)," but it just keeps reporting the same thing no matter how long I leave it plugged in.

I verified in the VAIO Control Center that "Battery Care Function" is *not* enabled, so the laptop *should* charge to 100%. I also switched "power plans," but that did not help.

I suspected that maybe it *is* in fact charging to 100% but only reporting a 48% charge. So I unplugged it and began playing videos on it. Interestingly, for about the first 15 minutes it continued to report 48% available, which signified to me that it had in fact charged up beyond the 48% it was reporting. Just when I was suspecting that it had in fact charged up to 100% and that I would therefore have to wait maybe an hour or so before it dipped below the reported 48%, it in fact started showing 47%, 46%, etc. So it seems to have been charged somewhat up above 48% but not all the way up to 100%.

I then removed the battery and powered on the laptop with no battery, using only the AC adapter. That worked fine. I then put the battery back on and let the laptop charge overnight without turning it on.

This morning I turned it on, and while plugged in it reports, "52% available (plugged in, charging)." It has reported the same thing for the past half hour while plugged in. Why 52% this time rather than 48%? And, more importantly, why not 100%?

Does anyone have any suggestions for how I can make this thing charge to 100%? Thank you in advance for your thoughts.

 

Turn off computer, take out the battery and side aside for 5 minutes. It should reset any possible caps.

 

Thanks, sixthday. I took the battery out, set it aside for about half an hour, and now after having had it plugged in a while, the computer has stopped charging at 54%.

Seems like each time I remove the battery I am able to charge the computer 2% more than I could before. I'd hate to think my only way of getting to 100% is to repeat this process 23 more times. . . .

 

Sounds like the OS prevent it to be full charged. To confirm it, let's do this: again, turn off and take out battery for a while. Then put battery back but do not turn on the computer. Instead, just plug in the AC and charge it overnight.

Turn it on the next day and see if it has been charged to 100%. If it is 100%, then you can confirm that it is the OS causes the problem. Otherwise, you may want to have sony check the battery.

 

Thanks again, sixthday. I tried your good suggestion, but unfortunately it didn't work.

However, every time I leave the laptop unplugged for a while and then plug it back in and turn it on, I am able to charge it up another 1 or 2%. I'm now able to charge it up to 70%. (Unfortunately, however, the laptop doesn't seem to be holding that charge very long at all.)

It appears to charge during the first minute or so following a reboot, but then it stops charging. That is, while the computer is still booting up, just after it shows me the desktop, I can see the battery icon "filling up." But 30 seconds or so later, the battery icon stops "filling up" despite the fact that, when I hover the mouse over it, it says, "plugged in, charging."

All of that was happening while running Vista 32-bit. For other reasons entirely I did a clean install of Windows 7 64-bit, and the battery behavior is identical. So at this point I've got to think it is a problem specifically with the battery. What do you think?

If it is a problem with the battery, do you happen to know whether buying a replacement battery from a third-party vendor is in general an okay thing to do, or do you think I ought to pay more to buy a battery directly from Sony?

Thanks again for all the help.

 

It sounds like a battery issue.

As for aftermarket batteries... It's a coin toss really.
I have one that is going on 3 years.
I have one that lasted 2.
I have one that lasted a little under 1.

Now before you complain it only lasted one, bear in mind that it cost me 1/10th of what Sony wanted for the same battery.

Some will say they have less capacity.
In some/most cases, yes. But, lets look at it another way, you currently only have use of about 50%, so a battery that has 90% of the original, is a upgrade. If the new battery only costs 1/4th of the Sony battery, you could buy 4 of them.

Some will say you could have problems with the factory battery software.
This is very likely. Manufacturers want you to buy from them. It's like Ford saying their cars work best with factory parts, even though a set of tires from the local parts store is just as good. Disable the factory battery system if it complains and install Battery Bar (install this regardless as it's a fantastic diagnostic tool).

Some will tell you they are batteries that failed Sony testing.
Sorry, but Sony does sell good batteries to other companies too. Given Sony battery track record, I'm not sure passing is anything to go on anyway. There are also other battery makers out there. Some of these people will tell you it could blow up... Yeah, and ones that passed Sony's quality check did as well. Remember the bulging Macs, and burned up Dell's, yep, Sony batteries. Sony makes 80-90% of major manufacturer batteries, or at least did before they all had problems.