Main battery
Any laptop computer has a battery pack which provides power to the laptop while it’s not connected to the wall-plug through AC/DC power adapter. Laptop batteries come in many different shapes and they are model-specific.
The laptop battery life depends upon many conditions and circumstances: screen brightness, intensity of running programs, the temperature of the working environment, etc…
The same battery could last longer in the same laptop if you optimize the power usage settings in the control panel. You can lower screen brightness, reduce CPU processing speed, chance cooling method, and other settings available on your laptop. Some of these settings could be changed only through the manufacturer’s power management software.
In most laptops the main battery connects directly to the system board.
TROUBLESHOOTING LAPTOP BATTERY PROBLEMS.
Let’s say your laptop stopped running on the battery power. It works fine from the AC adapter but shuts down as soon as you unplug the adapter. If that’s the case, try reconnecting the main battery. Remove it from the laptop and install back. It’s possible the battery is not making good connection with the motherboard.
Unfortunately, the only reliable way to test the main battery is replacing it with another known good battery.
If the laptop cannot detect the battery, even though it’s installed, try replacing the battery with a new one. If you still have the same issue, most likely there is a problem wiht the system board.
October 9th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
(I’m sorry Repair Main, for this repost, I’ve typed this in the wrong place of the site, I’ll watch more this section of the site).
Hello, may you can help me to figure out what is happening to my laptop battery. Before you lose interest in this message, I hope you read a bit more about my issue. Here is the thing: when I turn off my laptop (trademark DATEN, AMD 64bits dual core athlon x2, 2GB RAM, etc.) and turn it on after, say, some four or five hours, my battery is only 90% to 95% charged. So, I make sure that when I shut it down (not stand by) the battery is 100% full charge. So, to make sure that it isn’t a battery issue/problem, I remove the battery and after some hours (and a week in the vacation) I put it back and… 100% charged! The question is: is any part/piece of a laptop that can be running even when I turn the laptop off? It’s like some part, say, the wireless card still sucking my battery life or another part, I don’t know where more to go to solve it. I’m a coder/programmer and I never saw this behaviour before. If you wish to help me out, I can get more information from my Linux or Win32 OS to send it to you. What I’m sure is that the battery is ok and my Ubuntu says that the battery is ok, all cells ok, and it charge full! Hope my english was enough to you to understand me. Thank you in advance.
September 23rd, 2009 at 8:09 am
William,
Does it happen only when battery charge reaches 100%?
Here’s what you can try. Turn off the laptop, remove the battery and start the laptop from AC power.
Now wiggle the power plug inside the jack. If the laptop shuts down, it’s either bad jack or there is a short inside the power cord. Take a look at this post: Testing jack and power adapter.
September 23rd, 2009 at 6:07 am
I have a presario 2100 I am working on for someone. There battery was dead so I bought a replacement off of ebay for about $35. The battery works fine and charges fine, but when it reaches 100, “sometimes” the laptop starts using the battery and drops the power adpater and will sometimes flip back and fourth between the battery and the power. I thought at first I may have a bad dc jack that was shorting or something, but that doesn’t seem to be the case because the laptop runs fine on ext power. Could it be this cheap battery (which I noticed doesn’t have a UL sticker on it) causing problems? Could it be with the new battery, it is putting a load on the DC jack and shorting it?
Thanks
September 8th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
amit,
All batteries are different. You’ll have to use a voltmeter to find it out.
September 1st, 2009 at 2:31 am
how to find out whichis the +’- trminal of battry supply plz help me
July 10th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Makadauan,
It’s hard to tell without further investigation.
1. It’s possible the battery is defective even though it appears to be 100% charged and the laptop cannot start from the battery.
2. There could be a problem with the motherboard.
The only way to find out which one is causing the problem is testing the laptop with another known good battery. If the laptop still fails to start, you have a problem with the motherboard.
July 10th, 2009 at 6:10 am
This is my problem with my laptop, I can’t switch on my laptop if not connected to the adopter even if my battery is fully charge. the moment i connect with the adopter, i can switch the power on. what’s the problem with my laptop? thanks
February 24th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Grace,
I think you have a bad/faulty battery and it has to be replaced. Just my $0.02
February 23rd, 2009 at 6:27 pm
sorry for the late reply Mr. Repair Man. Anyway, the other flash drives are already functional in other computers. Even memory card reader here in the Phils are not readable by the laptop. It just requires drivers when being inserted by other devices. Do I really have to have drivers for every device that I am going to use? This really bothers me since I have tried inserting my flashdrive to other PC without drivers and it worked.
February 20th, 2009 at 5:32 am
I have a laptop Dell 2650, when i unplug the power cord, the battery is detected the laptop works fine for a few minutes and when the discharging level reaches 95%, the laptop turns off immediately yet i set it to get into hibernation when the battery level clocks 30%.Thus it misses hibernation and just turns off
What would be the problem. Cause initially the battery was discharging upto 0% then it hibernates.
Thanks
January 30th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
hazel,
That’s a really strange problem. Are you getting error message? How exactly the flash drive fails?
Did you try flash drives in any other working computer?
January 30th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Hello, just want to share a problem with my laptop. It only accepts flashdrive which I bought from the US. But when I came back here in the Phils, when I tried inserting other devices like flashdrives from my bro,card reader,and other devices,they don’t seem to work in my notebook. By the way, it’s OS is Windows Vista. It’s bothering me already since I can’t copy files from other devices. What’s the possible cause for this?Hope you can answer. Thanks..:)
January 19th, 2009 at 8:00 am
Qadir,
Try this. Turn off the laptop, remove the battery, unplug the AC adapter and wait for a few minutes. Test the laptop.
Take a closer look at the battery contacts, it’s possible overtime they got oxidized and will not make proper connection with the motherboard.
Make sure the battery is seated correctly.
January 19th, 2009 at 3:36 am
Hi,
My battery was working fine on saturday, but on sunday it stopped detecting the battary altogether even when its on AC power, it has constantly held 2 – 3 hours battery
Any of you guys had a problem when a good b battery stops being detected
January 12th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
I want say thank you Tim with comment 3. I had same laptop like yours Satellite A105. Bought it I think 4 years ago and it’s not in warranty. My battery did not hold charge for more than 30 minutes.
I checked my battery on website you gave us and called to Toshiba.
They will replace my battery for free because the recall.
Thank you for saving my money!
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Jim, I had same exact problem with the battery in my laptop. You have to buy a new battery, that’s what I did and it works fine now.
January 2nd, 2009 at 3:08 pm
I hope you know the answer.
The battery in my laptop charges fine and goes to 100%. After I unplug the adapter, the battery starts discharging normally until it reaches about 85% and after that the cahrge drops to 0% in a few minutes.
I plug the adapter back in and the battery starts charging normally again and charges to 100%. When I unplgu the adapter everythign repeats.
What is wrong with my laptop?
January 1st, 2009 at 12:12 pm
I just want to share.
I had a 3 year old Toshiba Satellite A105 laptop and the battery was dying. I was searching for a new battery pack for my laptop and found this page about battery recall in Satellites A105and Tecra A7 laptops. http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/support/jsp/bulletin.jsp?soid=1788033
I was going to buy a new battery but Toshiba replaced it at no charge! And yes, my laptop is not in warranty.
Tim T
December 28th, 2008 at 2:17 am
girl_M,
Your laptop will run longer without recharging with a battery with higher mAh. I would order the 4500mAh battery.
December 28th, 2008 at 2:12 am
I’m replacing laptop battery but not sure which one to order. I found two compatible batteries and everything looks exatly the same but one of them says 2000mAh and another one 4500mAh. Which one to order? Thanks.