Laptop battery no longer gets charged

In ,
David H. Lipman wrote:
From: "BillW50"

In ,
David H. Lipman wrote:
From: "Yousuf Khan"

I got an older model laptop running XP, it's a Gateway MX6440,
which is about 6 or 7 years old now. I keep it around to run older
software which may not have been ported to Windows 7. Just recently
I noticed that it's no longer charging its battery. The battery is
just over 1 year old, and it replaced the original battery. I see
the Power icon showing that I'm running on the AC mains, and that
the battery has 0% charge left on it, but the icon doesn't show any
charging going on. I could possibly get another battery, but I'm
afraid that maybe there's nothing wrong with the battery, and the
problem might lie with the circuitry that charges the battery from
the mains. Any way
to test this? The problem just occurred last week. Before that it
was charging fine.

Replace it. They don't last long. That's why a notebook might have
a 3 yr warranty but the battery only has a 1 yr warranty. The same
goes with powertools like Makita and DeWalt, etc.

It depends on how you treat them. I have had Li-Ion batteries last
up to 10 years while Barry Watzman got 12 years out of his.

Maybe. But normal usage shows the average battery doesn't last long.
As a function of time any given rechargable battery is less capable
of holding a charge for its rated discharge period as well as its
ability to supply full power decreases.
Then you have to look at how the charge/discharge cycles affect
different technologies; Lead/acid, LiION, NiMH, NiCAD, etc.

I just had to replace the battery in my Makita some months ago. It
would charge up but when I used the Makita it wasn't long before I
had to recharge it again.
Think about your automobiles (or boats) and over their life span you
had to replace the battery.

Yes all true! But there are some things to keep in mind. They say that
Li-Ion batteries lose 2% of its charge per month. This isn't 2% of its
capacity per month, that is different. I am not sure if they mean 2% of
a full charge, or 2% lose from its current state. In my experience it
seems like the former.

So based on this belief, a freshly manufactured Li-Ion should be able to
last on the shelf for about 50 months before the capacity drops to zero
(which is about 4 years). And it isn't really zero, as the battery
probably still has 3.2 to 3.4 volts per cell. Although devices that uses
Li-Ion batteries will refuse to power up when the battery is this low
for a good reason. As once the battery hits 2.8 volts per cell, they
tend to burst into flames if you try to charge them. Thus safety
circuits up that value a bit and will refuse to charge a battery that is
too low.

Now an 8 year old or younger Li-Ion battery, age has little to do with
the drop in capacity in my experience. Although there are other factors
which does reduce the capacity.

1) The number of recharges does drop the capacity. They claim that
Li-Ion batteries can be recharged 500 times. I personally have never
seen any laptop Li-Ion battery last 500 full recharges. 500 particle
recharges yes. I only have seen Li-Ion batteries last only about 150 to
200 full recharges and then the capacity is so low they are worthless.

2) Heat also reduces the capacity. The trip point seems to be around 112
degrees F. Say keep a battery at about 115 degrees F and the capacity
with be worthless in about a year to a year and a half. Most of this
heat is generally from the laptop itself, but charging or discharging
the battery also adds to the heat.

3) This one I really hate, because it is done by design and could be
prevented. As Li-Ion batteries which still has most of their capacity
left, can handle up to 4.1 volts per cell very nicely. I dunno, this is
only using like 90% of the battery's capacity and manufactures don't
like losing 10% of the battery running time. So they charge the cells to
4.2 volts to gain longer running time. They can't push them higher yet
because they would burst into flames. So 4.2v is safe, but it also
reduces the long-term capacity hard. And you probably could get full 500
recharges if you stopped charging them at 4.1v per cell.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo 1.83G - 2GB - Windows XP SP3

In ,
David H. Lipman wrote:
From: "Yousuf Khan"

On 8/15/2011 6:21 PM, BillW50 wrote:
Too bad we are not neighbors... as I have seven good batteries that
will fit that model. I also have two worthless batteries that will
fit it too. They basically have virtually no capacity, but they
will show a charge if you use them on AC. If you want to pay for
shipping, you can have one or both of them. So what does the
battery test button show?

The battery test button shows that there is at least some charge
left on it, one LED out of the 4.

I have nine Gateways that use that same battery. They are pretty
cheap on eBay (under 40 bucks). There is also a charger that uses
the AC adapter to charge the battery on eBay. But it isn't cheap,
like about 80 bucks if I remember right.

Yeah, I know, this battery was bought on Ebay too. But even if it's
cheaper on Ebay, it's still too expensive if the charging system is
shot and no battery will get recharged by it.

If it were me, I'd look for another laptop. I like the Gateway M465
the best (manufactures '06 to '07). As it can handle lots of
different CPUs (Celerons, Core Duo, and Core2 Duo), removable bay
for a second battery, floppy, and even a second hard drive. Plus
they work with the RQ5 docking station. They sell for between 50 to
100 bucks on eBay.

Oh that's definitely in the cards too, but I gotta keep this machine
to run those legacy software that I no longer have disks for.

I have managed hundreds of notebooks.

I have had batteries...
show they are fully charged yet last less thatn 30 mins instead of 3
hours. (most common) show a percentage and never increase even when
charged overnite.
Just replace the battery.

True, but his isn't charging at all. This tells me it is either one of
two things:

1) The Li-Ion battery voltage is too low and the safety circuits refuse
to charge the battery (which is a good thing since if the cell drops to
2.8v per cell, they tend to burst into flames if you force them to
charge). Which means you need a new battery.

2) Or the laptop charging circuit has failed (which is also common). As
the laptop battery ages, it wants more and more current to charge the
battery up to 4.2v per cell. This puts greater and greater strain on the
charging circuits. Then one day, it just quits charging any battery and
end of story.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo 1.83G - 2GB - Windows XP SP3

On 16/08/2011 8:08 AM, David H. Lipman wrote:
I have managed hundreds of notebooks.

I have had batteries...
show they are fully charged yet last less thatn 30 mins instead of 3 hours. (most common)
show a percentage and never increase even when charged overnite.

Just replace the battery.

The original battery on this was like that, it was slowly losing its
capacity over time. It would get charged up to 100%, but the 100% was
just a lot smaller than before. But it lasted over 5 years.

The second battery is behaving entirely different. The charger is not
saying it's being charged to 100% (smaller 100% or not), it's showing at
0%, and there is no charging icon displayed, it's just showing that it's
sitting on the mains. In other words, the charger is refusing to charge
it at all. This has me worried that getting a new battery will simply
result in that one not being charged either.

I'd just like to find out if the charging mechanism is still functional
before buying a new battery yet again.

Yousuf Khan

From: "Yousuf Khan"

On 16/08/2011 8:08 AM, David H. Lipman wrote:
I have managed hundreds of notebooks.

I have had batteries...
show they are fully charged yet last less thatn 30 mins instead of 3 hours. (most
common)
show a percentage and never increase even when charged overnite.

Just replace the battery.

The original battery on this was like that, it was slowly losing its capacity over time.
It would get charged up to 100%, but the 100% was just a lot smaller than before. But it
lasted over 5 years.

The second battery is behaving entirely different. The charger is not saying it's being
charged to 100% (smaller 100% or not), it's showing at 0%, and there is no charging icon
displayed, it's just showing that it's sitting on the mains. In other words, the charger
is refusing to charge it at all. This has me worried that getting a new battery will
simply result in that one not being charged either.

I'd just like to find out if the charging mechanism is still functional before buying a
new battery yet again.

In all the notebooks, that's hundreds, I have managed only ONE notebook suffered from a
problem with the ability to charge the battery.



--
Dave
Multi-AV Scanning Tool - http://multi-av.thespykiller.co.uk
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp

On 17/08/2011 2:51 PM, David H. Lipman wrote:
In all the notebooks, that's hundreds, I have managed only ONE notebook suffered from a
problem with the ability to charge the battery.

Okay then, so it's exceedingly rare, you're saying.

Yousuf Khan

In ,
David H. Lipman typed:
From: "Yousuf Khan"

On 16/08/2011 8:08 AM, David H. Lipman wrote:
I have managed hundreds of notebooks.

I have had batteries...
show they are fully charged yet last less thatn 30 mins
instead of 3 hours. (most common)
show a percentage and never increase even when charged
overnite. Just replace the battery.

The original battery on this was like that, it was
slowly losing its capacity over time. It would get
charged up to 100%, but the 100% was just a lot smaller
than before. But it lasted over 5 years. The second battery is behaving
entirely different. The
charger is not saying it's being charged to 100%
(smaller 100% or not), it's showing at 0%, and there is
no charging icon displayed, it's just showing that it's
sitting on the mains. In other words, the charger is
refusing to charge it at all. This has me worried that
getting a new battery will simply result in that one not
being charged either. I'd just like to find out if the charging
mechanism is
still functional before buying a new battery yet again.

In all the notebooks, that's hundreds, I have managed
only ONE notebook suffered from a problem with the
ability to charge the battery.

Got a cheapie voltmeter? Even one from RadioShack? Use/borrow one to see if
the ckt is putting out a voltage. You might need to put a 4.7k resistor
across the meter leads to trick the cktry into coming on. I didn't do the
power calcs, but you only need to see it for a seconds, long enough to see
the voltage is there or not.
f'ups set

In ,
Yousuf Khan typed:
On 17/08/2011 2:51 PM, David H. Lipman wrote:
In all the notebooks, that's hundreds, I have managed
only ONE notebook suffered from a problem with the
ability to charge the battery.

Interesting: I've seen bent/malformed tabs and pins, damage from attempted
forcing the battery and several other reasons, along with at least three
chargng ckt problems over the last 4 years or so. I've also seen drop-damage
now I think of it, and probably a few others, too. Newbies bring in a lot of
machines.
--
Regards,

Tom`





Okay then, so it's exceedingly rare, you're saying.

Yousuf Khan

In ,
Twayne wrote:
In ,
Yousuf Khan typed:
On 17/08/2011 2:51 PM, David H. Lipman wrote:
In all the notebooks, that's hundreds, I have managed
only ONE notebook suffered from a problem with the
ability to charge the battery.

Interesting: I've seen bent/malformed tabs and pins, damage from
attempted forcing the battery and several other reasons, along with
at least three chargng ckt problems over the last 4 years or so. I've
also seen drop-damage now I think of it, and probably a few others,
too. Newbies bring in a lot of machines.

Okay then, so it's exceedingly rare, you're saying.

Yousuf Khan

Yup, I have seen those too. And those of us, who fly a lot with our
laptops... also discovered that most of the time the aircraft only
supplies so much power per outlet and that is it. And laptops are pretty
good about adjusting for a lower wattage supply. And what they generally
do is to disable battery charging but the rest of the laptop works fine
otherwise.

That is another thing to check once you know the problem isn't the
battery. Remember I offered to send you a battery to check your computer
with. Anyway your AC power supply could also not put out all of the
amperage that it used too. In that case, the laptop will refuse to
charge the battery, but work fine otherwise.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo 1.83G - 2GB - Windows XP SP3

In ,
BillW50 wrote:

Yup, I have seen those too. And those of us, who fly a lot with our
laptops... also discovered that most of the time the aircraft only
supplies so much power per outlet and that is it. And laptops are
pretty good about adjusting for a lower wattage supply. And what they
generally do is to disable battery charging but the rest of the
laptop works fine otherwise.

That is another thing to check once you know the problem isn't the
battery. Remember I offered to send you a battery to check your
computer with. Anyway your AC power supply could also not put out all
of the amperage that it used too. In that case, the laptop will
refuse to charge the battery, but work fine otherwise.

Oh yeah Yousuf, not only could I send you a battery to test, but I also
have AC power supplies too that I could send for you for testing. You
could email me by changing KOM to COM if you are interested.

--
Bill
Gateway M465e ('06 era) - OE-QuoteFix v1.19.2
Centrino Core Duo 1.83G - 2GB - Windows XP SP3

On 18/08/2011 1:59 PM, BillW50 wrote:
In ,
BillW50 wrote:

Yup, I have seen those too. And those of us, who fly a lot with our
laptops... also discovered that most of the time the aircraft only
supplies so much power per outlet and that is it. And laptops are
pretty good about adjusting for a lower wattage supply. And what they
generally do is to disable battery charging but the rest of the
laptop works fine otherwise.

That is another thing to check once you know the problem isn't the
battery. Remember I offered to send you a battery to check your
computer with. Anyway your AC power supply could also not put out all
of the amperage that it used too. In that case, the laptop will
refuse to charge the battery, but work fine otherwise.

Oh yeah Yousuf, not only could I send you a battery to test, but I also
have AC power supplies too that I could send for you for testing. You
could email me by changing KOM to COM if you are interested.

Well, I ended up ordering a new battery online, and it came in today. I
put it in, and it's being successfully charged up. So my problem is
solved. Just wondering what caused the previous battery to fail in the
way that it did?

Yousuf Khan