No battery power

[prestonchipfryer]

On my Acer Aspire laptop the battery will not charge. Clicking on the battery icon it says 14 per cent available (plugged in, not charging). The laptop will work direct from the mains though. Is it a s***ged battery or something else? Any ideas?

John

[Tim]

How old is the laptop and since owning it, do you normally have it plugged into the mains with the battery still in - i.e., always on charge?

[Reid Malenfant]

If it's anything like this Acer lappy it won't charge the battery until it the voltage has dropped to a certain level. At that point a small indicator LED lights & it tops the battery up.

If the battery is stating 14% charged then it sounds more like the charger inside the laptop is possibly US as it should be attempting to charge it to 100% :scratch:

In fact thinking about it the battery symbol should only be visible in the status bar if the main power supply is not plugged in.. IE it's running on the battery ;)

[prestonchipfryer]

How old is the laptop and since owning it, do you normally have it plugged into the mains with the battery still in - i.e., always on charge?

Just over a year (Oct.) - and a mixture, about 50 per cent., of plugged in and using on battery.

Thanks

[Rare Bird]

I get fed up with the short life lappy batteries have, both Dells we have the battery holds charge for 20 mins max :rolleyes: They are around £15 each so not too bad

[Jonboy]

My daughters Dell won't charge the battery anymore and now comes up with a error message that the battery requires replacing, i have been told that Dell had a problem with the mother boards and a new battery won't solve this :(

[Rare Bird]

What model is it Jon?

[prestonchipfryer]

It's an Acer Aspire 5334. It works when plugged in to the charger. The charger isn't even getting warm now as before it used to get quite warm, which is normal, which makes me think it's the battery. New batteries are between 40 and 90 pounds.

It is so annoying.

John

[Tim]

Just something to be mindful of here folks, but the quickest way to kill the life of a laptop battery, is to leave it in the laptop permanently. Li-on batteries deteriorate with heat and constant charging. Best case scenario is to only plug them in when you need to use the lappy away from the mains. Leave them in all the time and you can reduce their useful life considerably.

To extend life, try not to let them get too hot and only charge to 80% of capacity. Many modern laptops will do this with their power management options - heat is the big killer.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries