Laptop battery not charging

Xeno

Ok, I have a HP dv6500. Kinda old, and the battery was shit. So I picked up a new 12 cell battery before I went to school. Put it in, and had 60% charge in it, so I used it for the day. Shut down the laptop with 32% left.

Got home and plugged it in and the comp was off. Came back half hour later, and the windows icon still says 32%......

Got a program to read batt info, and it said it was 32%.

So I unplugged it and let the battery completely die. I plugged it in, and the windows batt info says 7% and plugged in, charging. The program says battery is charging, but its stuck at 7% as well, and under charge rate, it says 0 mW. The icon on my computer is showing that I am plugged in and the batt should be charging. But all the info is showing nothing. It has been stuck at 7% for like 30 minutes now.

Also, every once in a while, it will jump to 100%, then jump back down. Anyone know what the fuck is up? Already tried deleting Microsoft ACPI thing. Didn't work.

Any help guys?

edit: Ok, it is DEFINITELY not charging at all. Disconnected the power, and 20 seconds later, it shut off.

MKR

Batteries are usually either dead or working. There's not much that can go wrong with them save for blowing up and not charging. If it's not charging, it's probably defective. RMA time

Xeno

Hmmm, but the laptop was USING the battery power. Why is it not charging then?

I hooked up my old battery and that IS charging. But the new one isn't....

What the fuck is going on.

MKR

Just a thing

Power goes in in a different way than it comes out. You can use the available power even if it won't take more in. And just because it's charging doesn't mean it's ok. I had an old battery that "died," came back and ran for 3 hours, then never charged again.

Xeno

MKR wrote: »

Just a thing

Power goes in in a different way than it comes out. You can use the available power even if it won't take more in. And just because it's charging doesn't mean it's ok. I had an old battery that "died," came back and ran for 3 hours, then never charged again.

Damn, alright. Maybe it is defective. I guess I'll take it to the place I got it.

Btw, where the battery has the metal prongs, thats where it gives power and charges, right? Because the battery isn't a perfect fit. Like, it snaps in, but it isnt flush with the bottom. Not sure if that has anything to do with it.

Thanks for the advice though.

Xeno

Hmmm, left it on for about 2 hours with the comp off. The batt meter shows it went up .4% since those 2 hours. Yeah, battery is fucked.

Cycophant

I recently ran into a problem like this with my Dell, and it turned out to be an issue with the AC adapter and plug. The plug for my laptop is a circular one with a prong in the middle, and it's the job of this prong to send a signal to the laptop to say "This is a legitimate power supply". If the laptop doesn't get this signal, it runs at a reduced power setting and also will not charge the battery. Same situation you're in; Windows reports the battery as "charging" but at 0 mW.

So it could be some sort of system like that in your HP. If all you've changed is the battery and never had problems with your power supply, I'm willing to bet there's some sort of "communication protocol" issue between your battery and your laptop. Especially if the new battery you bought was an aftermarket, non-HP one.

Xeno

Cycophant wrote: »

I recently ran into a problem like this with my Dell, and it turned out to be an issue with the AC adapter and plug. The plug for my laptop is a circular one with a prong in the middle, and it's the job of this prong to send a signal to the laptop to say "This is a legitimate power supply". If the laptop doesn't get this signal, it runs at a reduced power setting and also will not charge the battery. Same situation you're in; Windows reports the battery as "charging" but at 0 mW.

So it could be some sort of system like that in your HP. If all you've changed is the battery and never had problems with your power supply, I'm willing to bet there's some sort of "communication protocol" issue between your battery and your laptop. Especially if the new battery you bought was an aftermarket, non-HP one.

Hmm, yeah, it was an aftermarket one. A real HP one is like 150 bucks. I bought this one for 50. They said they followed all OEM standards, blah blah. I can charge my normal hp official 6-cell one just fine, but I cant charge this one.

Hmmm, so I'm guessing theres nothing I can do besides just buying an official one? What did you do?

Improvolone

Sounds like you bought a POS battery. I'm not that knowledgeable about options, but you probably don't have to buy name brand, I'm sure there are good third party vendors out there. I just suspect you didn't buy from one.

Rikushix

I come bearing a solution! Potentially.

I had a HP Pavilion dv9417, bought in Canada in August 2007, and experienced the same problem as you: battery started to lose its charge almost instantly, plus a host of other features: the computer got very hot, the display driver occasionally crashed, and worst of all, the wireless adapter would drop for absolutely no reason after some use and could only be reset by a restart.

What was wrong with it? After much searching, I found this:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&docname=c01087277

Combined with information I found online plus what some of the HP reps told me, I found out that what happened was (supposedly), the mainboards were built using a faulty soldering agent that overheated quicker than it was supposed to, causing failures in the onboard video, wireless adapter, and AC power adapter.

I sent away for the free repair, was told that some of the problems would be fixed but I was NOT eligible for the fix for the charging problem because my symptoms weren't right, which was absolute bullshit.

I got my laptop back, totally fixed other than the charging problem that you are experiencing. However, you might have better luck. If it's not too late, you might be able to send it in for a free repair.

That being said, the debacle was so bad that there was a class-action lawsuit formed in the State of California against HP for this mess. I couldn't sign up because I live in Canada, but I wish I could. The laptop was the worst piece of hardware I ever bought. Never buying from HP again.

(p.s. EVEN if this is truly the problem, it may still be fixed by just replacing the battery...I haven't tried this yet on my laptop because I don't use it enough to justify buying another battery)

Spudge

Pretty sure your issue is a non-OEM battery in an HP laptop

(I, uh, design these things for a living)

BTW your 12 cell battery is currently on sale through HP too. It's still $120, but at least you won't have the charging problem