Laptop Shuts Itself Off

My gf's laptop (Gateway Model ID49C) has been having some issues and hopefully some of you can help us out. Gateway's tech support insists it's a Windows problem, but I am wary and wanted everyone's opinion.

When she is running it off the battery, it will run fine for about 20 minutes and then abruptly shut off. When she starts it back up the battery levels indicate it's not even near empty yet it will shut itself off again in 20 minutes. I booted into the bios and let it sit for a while and it shut itself off again.

When it is plugged in it doesn't do this.

She contacted tech support and they told her it's probably a corrupt windows file causing the issue and that she should reformat and reinstall windows. I'm not an expert, but I thought that doesn't make sense. Why would it be a windows issue when it still does it in bios and only when it's running on the battery?

I'm wondering if the battery/computer contacts are bad/dirty or the battery may be faulty. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

strange one. first thing comes to mind is temperature but its ok on mains so its most probably not that.
download battery care and any other monitor program you want from my sig below so you can monitor the various things while you wait for more replys.

also can you give us the full spec of her lappy and does it have intergrated or dedicated graphics.

 

Good idea to clean it, go into (f2 after power on) the BIOS and see if there is a battery calibration utility, if there is run that. Also install a utitlity like HWiNFO, HWiNFO32 & HWiNFO64 - Hardware Information and Analysis Tools (32 or 64 depending on our OS) run it and from the main screen expand battery and check the wear level.
You can also verify if it is overheating with the sensors dialog.
Last try manual battery calibration.

 

Get them to replace the battery. That is battery failure 101. Li-Ion cells do odd things when they're on their way out.

 

I'll second the sounds like a battery issue I've seen similar problems before and please do not just format and reinstall because support 'thinks' its a windows problem....ahhhhh that bothers me that they do that.

 

I ran the HWiNFO utility and the battery wear is at 66%. We'll probably order a new battery soon. We appreciate the help.

 

Try entering BIOS and going to battery power. Does it shut off like it does with Windows? That should prove to Gateway it isn't a Windows problem.

 

I did exactly that and the problem persisted. We made it very clear to CS that this was still happening in BIOS but it didn't change their opinion. I thought they were full of it and sought out advice here instead, which so far has proven to be much, much better.

Replacement batteries are like $50 so she is going to order one and see if that works and return it if not. If it does work, she is going to contact CS again to let them know they need to use a little more common sense. If I wasn't around or not a member of NBR, she may have followed their instructions. Not only would that have been a pain but it wouldn't have fixed the problem to begin with.

 

Try staying with OEM battery also. In the mean time you can try recalibrating the battery using a tool in the BIOS if it exists.

cheers ...

 

We received the OEM battery and calibrated it. This has resolved the problem so Gateway CS was in fact completely wrong. Thankfully this website exists and thanks everyone for the help.

 

glad you got it sorted.