_kC_

hi, wondering if anyone'sgot any ideas about my laptop battery/charging problem..

i have an evesham 2.66ghz/512mb ram laptop, which was working luvvvly until november of 2004... when the battery life started to really degrade.. then it just stopped charging.. the laptop still worked fine on the power supply so thats how i was using it, and just thougtht, oh well the battery must be screwed..

so few days ago i ordered a new battery for it which cost £140, whilst a bit steep, i thought it would be worthwile.

battery came today and i read the notes with it

"for safety reasons the batteries arnt fully charged for shipping, please fully charge before use"

so, i put the battery in, plugged in the charger.. light showed orange (charging) waited 4 hours still charging... so i switched on the laptop to look at the battery meter
92%

i thought woohoo nearly done..

shutdown laptop, left it for another hour.. still light showed orange.. switched on the laptop, it was still at 92% so obviously not charging at all..

left it again for another 2 hours on charge (laptop off) and the light turned fromorange to green (meaning fully charged) but the battery meter still said 92%

but when i switched on again, it was still at 92% but didnt say the battery state was still charging.

so i unplugged the power supply.. ran the battery for a couple of hours.. until it ran out of juice... put the charger backin, and nothing... totaly dead.


i cant see that the charger could be damaged, as the laptop still runs fine when plugged in. so what else could cause a laptop to not charge up?

gutted now because ive wasted £140 on a battery i realisenow,i didnt really need..

any ideas ?

cheers

Kush

so now it wont even charge right?

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zeke_mo

First off, you could sell the extra battery on ebay , and second, have you tried flashing your BIOS? IF not give that a try, and have you tried tech support? As much of a pain that it is you can get some good help from them

_kC_

ive phoned tech support, but because the machine is no longer in warranty i have to pay!!

havnt tried flashing the bios... because there is no newer bios

yep neither battery will charge

zeke_mo

What model is this laptop?

_kC_

its an evesham stamped "mitac 8640dh"

LeeJend

The system used to work so flashing bios is a waste of time.

The new battery took and held a charge once so it is good.

Just because the charger will power the laptop does not mean it is good. A charger has 2 functions:
1) Power the laptop when plugged into AC.
2) Provide proper charging sequencing and current levels to get the most out of the battery.

Function 2) is quite complex involving changing the charge current while monitoring temperature and voltage on the battery. If one of the sensors (temp, volt, or current) is going bad then the charger can get confused and not do it's job right.

Another potential problem is that everytime you screw with the system while it is trying to charge you may cause it to reset it's charge sequence and get it confused. Put it on charge and leave it alone until it is done.

The third possibility is that the actual battery charger "smart circuitry" is in the laptop, not in the power pack. If that's the case then you are screwed since it would cost as much to fix the bad charging circuitry as a new laptop.

Actions:
1) Run the laptop battery down then put it on the charger and leave it alone for 12 hours.
2) Call their tech support and describe the symptoms. Just the symptoms, not all the screwing around you did. They will discount whatever you say if they think you were playing techie with the hardware.
-Battery was not charging up properly.
-Bought new battery.
-New battery took charge once.
-New battery not charging now after running laptop for 4 hours (or however long).
-Try and get RMA for new battery if they say it is the charger or laptop.

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zeke_mo

This might not help buts its what I could find

The battery may need to be calibrated. If the option is not present in the system set up, leave the notebook switched on in the CMOS Setup screen: Restart the computer. On the first black and white screen as the computer starts you will see a message to press a key to enter Setup. As the setup screen is accessed prior to power management being loaded the system will only shut down when the battery is fully discharged. After doing this, charge the battery completely without interruption. It is good practice to carry out this procedure every month or so.

Some notebooks also have a specific discharge feature, often located on the BIOS exit menu, check the manual of the notebook for confirmation.

_kC_

im not sure the battery did take charge at all...
maybe it was shipped @ 92%

ill try leave it on charge overnite and the the bios stuff

thanks for the help

_kC_

some good news....
i did the bios discharge thing (the bios didnt have discharge, but it let it run the battery right down before any power saving stuff had loaded)

then put it on charge, the good news is that the charger is warm.... previously it had stayed stone cold....

will leave it off and charging overnite (or until the light turns green) and let you know

thanks again

k

_kC_

4hrs later..fully 100% charged!!!! woooohooo

nice being truely wireless again...


1 last question regarding keeping these batteries in tip top form.. is it best too do the bios complete discharge every time before charging? i thought li-ion batteries wernt as prone to the memory affect?
and isnt completely discharging li-ion bad for them?

why i say this, is i was following a thread at osnn regarding ipod li-ion battery preservation

link - http://www.osnn.net/forum/showthread...ipod+batteries

especially lordofla's post
"if the battery is litium ion, then it doesn't hurt the battery.

what will hurt the battery is letting it drain fully as they aren't designed for that."

zeke_mo

Glad I could help
You might want to consider formating, if it is the power mangament that is causing the problem

LeeJend

You are correct. Avoid deep discharging the Lithium Ion batteries. It kills their life.

But at the same time once you start to charge make sure you have enough time to let the charge cycle complete.

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Maveric169

Lithium Ion batteries do have a "memory" wrt charging. While you don't want to deep discharge them you idealy want to run the bettery down till you need to recharge it. About every 50-100 recharge cycles, you should use the bios discharge feature. just check you batteries life cycle info under batter info. Usually it will tell you what the max rated power is for the bettery and what the battery currently is. When you have lost say 20% of battery storage, discharge the battery, and let it fully recharge overnight.

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xsivforce

Had this problem on my laptop. Ended up being the port where the power cord plugs in. Thankfully under warranty.

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_kC_

everything running great now with new battery.. found something else while reading the manual of the laptop..
that the battery wont charge if too cold or too hot.. hence why it didnt immediatley start charging after i had used it first time round