power question

[Potato]

If you're using AC power on a laptop, and your battery is completely dead, would your computer still stay on or would it shut off?

ONCE AGAIN my lovely laptop is giving me problems. It'll say "Critical battery" then something about how I should switch to AC power if I want to save stuff. BUT I AM USING AC POWER. Then within a few minutes, it'll shut itself off. Is it my adapter that's crapping out on me? Sometimes before the computer wouldn't recognize that it was plugged in, then I'd have to twist the plugin thingie around and it'd work.

Earlier this morning I went to turn it on just for kicks, and it worked for about ten minutes. It did the "Critical battery" thing again and turned off about 5 seconds later. While it was on though I checked to see how much battery power there was, and it said it was at 100%, and it was using AC power. I dunno what the deal is.

I tried taking the battery out and blowing on it, thinking maybe there was dust or something but it obviously did no good.

Right now I took out the battery and am using AC power soley. Now I put the battery back in and it says "Total battery power remaining: 3%"

A few minutes later.... it says my battery is at 100%. It doesn't charge that fast, does it? It said it was at 100% earlier and it crapped out on me a few minutes later.

[aqlo]

Sounds like you should replace the battery?

[Potato]

I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO DO THAT.

*sigh*

[Ken17625]

Looks like the battery isn't able to hold a charge.

[Potato]

Arggghhh it did it again with no battery and running on AC power. No warning this time.

[Foreverboard]

3 things, could be all could be one, or a combination of the 3.

1-bad power plug on the system board
2-bad AC addapter
3-bad battery

sounds like the battery for sure is gone, the when mine went bad it went from 100% to 20% in jsut a few minutes then to nothing and shut off. It also kept the system from working properly.


what kind of laptop is it?

[fujow]

Need more info on the laptop brand, Some sony's have that problem.

[Potato]

Not a Sony.

hp pavilion ze1210

I don't see why it should shut off when using AC power though.

[hawkburn]

Same problem happened with my cousin's Compaq rite when she got it. She returned the battery, got a new one, and it works fine.

It's kind of like re-chargable batteries. 1.) If they're new, they might be faulty. 2.) If they're old, they're out of possible re-charges. 3.) If they're in between - it was shotty manufacturing.

Good luck, and maybe get yourself a new battery for x-mas.

[Potato]

Oh just what I wanted to spend the moneys on.

*waves goodbye to the digital camera*

[cpugeniusmv]

i have an old 486 laptop...the battery can barely hold a charge. unplug it, and it has about 3 minutes of life.

i imagine it would still work, try taking it out and powering it up.

[Potato]

I did that. It ended up shutting itself off anyways. That's what I don't get. That's what makes me think it's something else too. But I'll try it again.

[shawners]

The LAPTOp cant handle the voltage and has to change it to DC power and if its plugged in wall, its still drawing the battery power cause its changed to dc.. So battery needs replacing, how long you had this laptop?

[Potato]

August '02

I'm just really not liking the idea of having to get a new battery. :(

[Foreverboard]

wow I see why:

Li-Ion Laptop Battery for
HP Pavilion ZE1210 Laptop
(IN STOCK)
Price: $ 143.95

[Foreverboard]

wow I see why:

Li-Ion Laptop Battery for
HP Pavilion ZE1210 Laptop
(IN STOCK)
Price: $ 143.95


found one for $119.50

battery (http://www.shopbattery.net/hppaztztztzt4.html)

[shawners]

battery life usually last 7-18 months on some occasion.
Maybe put it on your christmas wish list ;) Or set up a paypal.. Ill donate to the cause.

[CCSDUDE]

The LAPTOp cant handle the voltage and has to change it to DC power and if its plugged in wall, its still drawing the battery power cause its changed to dc.. So battery needs replacing, how long you had this laptop?

The AC cable IS the converter. See that nice lil lump of crap between the two plugs? Hmm.. ;) It can also be inside the laptop: Compaq use to do this but after awhile the heat it added was wayyyyyyyyyy to much considering the tight tolerance with newer cpus'.

Potato look over the battery and see if it has some sort of switch. If so try flipping it (worked on this old 486 IBM thinkpad I have) if not try removing it and powering up with just the plug.

If that leads to failure...and as you already stated - it needs a bit of play to work sometimes. You probably have a faulty AC cable. Try sneaking your laptop into some BestBuy then see if any of the HP floor model cables work with yours. lol Course that'd be loads easier if you know someone who works at the yellow commode.

[Potato]

foreverboard: that looks nothing like mine. hm.

shawners: It's Christmas Eve, nobody's going to be like "OHYEA, Angela suddenly needs a new battery for her laptop, I'll go get one and spend an arm and a leg." Nobody likes me that much. I'll try that paypal thing though.

CCS: There's no switch on it. There's a thing I can apparently push on and it will tell me how much battery there is. It blinks yellow at 20. It goes in increments of 20... so it's at the lowest. I don't know wtf the problem was earlier with the AC thing, but the laptop has been on now for a few hours with the battery removed, and it's been just fine.

Why the hell are these things so f*cking expensive?

[isus]

on a mac, when the battery's charge is misread, you can reset the pram by holding down a certain key combo on startup... maybe there is such a thing for yours?

[muffenme]

:fire

I glad I don't have this problem. I have a Toshiba 4800CT 486 and the NiMH battery is totally useless. When you unplug the AC adapter, it shut off right away but with the AC adapter, she can be on for hours with no problems.

I think you might have an AC adapter problem or a problem with the computer because when the unit is plug in, it should use the DC power from the adapter and also send power to the battery no matter if the battery is fully charge, 100% dead, or taking little to no charge. The condiction of the battery make no different. You should have got a Toshiba notebook.

:hole

[ccc1005]

Wait with the Toshiba laptop we have, if you take the battery out it runs just fine on the AC adapter.

I assume all laptops work the same, if you take the battery out you can just run it on outlet power, right?

If yours cant even do that maybe its something with the power supply in the laptop??

[Omyn]

I hope you have it under warrenty.

Sounds like it is a problem with the battery.

The reason they are so expensive is because manufactures start raising the prices of them when they get older, or just stop manufacturing them, forcing you to pay high prices for the battery, or to buy a new laptop.

Cheap I know, either way they are good at taking peoples money.

[Potato]

I love that it took me 10 minutes just to see a reply box.

The warranty is expired. Only had a year on it, and two on the screen.

I wonder if the power supply is going out... it turned off on its own when I barely moved it earlier (running on AC power). The adapter cord thingie is finicky, that could be the other problem too. Sometimes you hafta turn it around and stuff for it to work.

Blah.

[MikeHunt]

ok ok...at the risk of throwing a drowning person a sponge of hope...there is a program that might be able to help you... Battery Doubler.
It has a battery recalibration wizard and can possibly resolve your problem.
The trial version is available from:
www.dachshundsoftware.com/index.html

I would use it as a diagnostic tool,more so,than a solution.
Read what it says about battery failures etc..and see if it helps. ..couldn't hurt.
(they have some other cool software there as well)