Bad Battery...Or Worse?

[BBL]

This involves my 2008 Compaq Presario F730US laptop.


Recently, the battery would charge, and, sometimes, it wouldn't. When I plug it in, it will say something like "Battery: 11%. Plugged in, not charging."

Of course, that worries me, so I'll run the HP Computer Check thing, and tell it to test the battery. Whenever it says "not charging" it will say "Replace." whenever it's charging, it says "Good." and the "battery life indicator" shows it at about 80% left. Not to be confused with the battery level indicator, which is whatever the battery currently reads while it's charging.


So, since the battery is only about 2 years old, I honestly can't imagine it being bad. It's not affected by the HP Recall (unfortunately!) so I can't get a freebie replacement. Now, it did it a few minutes ago, and I was playing a game on it, so I didn't know how low it got (with the AC cable connected) until it went into "emergency standby mode" or whatever you wish to call it. The AC adaptor had become partially unplugged, so I plugged it back in, and turned it on. After re-loading, it showed it at 4%, and not charging. So, I shut it down, removed the battery, and after letting it cool a bit, I put it back in. (It wasn't hot, really, just as warm as every other laptop battery I've used) Then, it took a charge, and is charging now.


Any input fellas? If it is the battery, can anyone recommend a good source to buy one?

 

[ElenaP]

Check and possibly clean the connection between the battery and the laptop. Maybe there is something "foreign" on the battery terminals, causing an intermittent contact problem.

 

[Gunbuster]

2 years? haha most have a one year warranty and you can be very lucky to get ten days beyond that.

Battery's are a consumable and they have gotten very good about process control after all those explosions/fires/recalls. Almost too good I think.

 

[BBL]

For what it's worth, my old Dell Inspiron battery is 7 years old, and it holds a charge just a couple minutes shorter than this one. How sad is that?


@Elena, Nothing questionable in the connector, someone told me the adaptor itself may be going bad and not allowing enough current to go through to charge it. Plausible?

 

[C1]

Hmmm ..... my advice is to clean the battery terminals (both the ones on the battery & those in the computer) with "Deoxit". Use a Q-tip and make sure to (clean off) not leave any Q-tip fibers.

What your experiencing is unusual & the only guess right now is poor/intermittent contact (battery to computer at the connector). You might even try a piece of cardboard as battery placement shim to ensure adequate contact pressure.