Laptop battery issue. Completely gone?

Ratbag · 6 Jan 2011 at 13:41

I've been given an oldish emachines laptop that was riddled with crapware and malware to sort out. But when its disconnected from the mains it shuts down immediately, and complains of being shut down incorrectly when rebooted. I've used netbook hardware control app to see if the battery is okay and it says it is, though it obviously isn't. Is there a decent way of checking the battery? I have seen battery life fail slowly but not just fail completely and immediately.

The main problem I have is that the owner says the battery was okay when they gave it to me. Luckily, they are friends otherwise it'd be more awkward. Thanks.

beermonster · 6 Jan 2011 at 13:53

Its quite common for batteries to hold no charge whatsoever and the laptop die when the mains is removed.

There is a freeware program called batmon that should show you the actual capacity of the battery.

arknor · 6 Jan 2011 at 14:01

my sons old laptop which was pretty much plugged in chargingf at the mains almost constantly for 5 years goes down to 93% and then just BAM 0%

it only takes like 5 minutes, i expect a lot of older laptops are like this , most of the newer ones come with software that allows you to set the max charge % to 50% which keeps the batteries fairly healthy if your just going to use it from the mains nearly all the time anyway

Ratbag · 6 Jan 2011 at 14:20

Righto thanks it looks like a new battery is in order...

arknor · 8 Jan 2011 at 01:24

beermonster said:
Its quite common for batteries to hold no charge whatsoever and the laptop die when the mains is removed.

There is a freeware program called batmon that should show you the actual capacity of the battery.

doesnt work for mine...

shows the actual capacity of the battery only beeing under 20% what it should be but once the battery goes to around 93% charge it just suddenly drops off a cliff to around 6% charged