Battery fully charged - laptop not responding

Question

Weird one - Laptop will not run on Battery with no AC. However, when testing battery, it's fully charged. When you try and run laptop with AC and Battery in place, power comes on but nothing further - no hard drive icon flashing and no battery recognition and just a blank screen.

Runs on AC alone with the battery pack taken out - can survive with that if all i need is a new battery, but 2 things. If my current battery is fully charged, why isn't it recognising this? (Don't want to buy new battery if it's a connection problem).

2nd, at the moment, screen is so dark and it's not something that's resolved with Fn and arrow control. Can anyone tell me what's happening please?

sulu54 · Answer

I have the exact same problem.  Although the battery was charged, i could not use the laptop unless it was plugged in.  So i bought another battery thinking that was the problem, but as soon as the battery was put in, it was instantly drained.  It won't even turn on now unless plugged in and the battery pack taken out.  I plan to call Dell and see if I can send the laptop to them and find out whether this is something that can be fixed, and if so, will the cost be worth it.

Spinister · Answer

I'm glad to have found someone with the same problem (although I do sympathise with you!:smileywink:) - I have steered away from buying a new battery yet for the very reason you've experienced.

I am loathed to phone DELL because my warranty has expired, so if they think they can fix it for me, they'll charge me £60. I don't really want to pay that much if it's a problem that has a simple resolution.

Out of interest, have you got the contrast problem or is your screen bright enough?

I am finding that my laptop is getting increasingly slower as well (over time) so I'm trying to work out if it's going to be worth my while just upgrading and buying a new machine.

Be interested to hear what DELL say to you

sulu54 · Answer

I did buy a 'new' battery, from a reliable source, not from Dell at about half the price of a new one from Dell but my computer immediately drained it so that the computer instantly turns off if unplugged.  I took the battery pack out all together.  I spoke to dell yesterday and basically it was going to cost me $367.00 to sent to them, with a guarantee that the computer would be like new OR that I would have an actually new upgraded computer.  Well ,for only $100/150 more I could buy a new computer myself.  So i canceled the order and the guy put me on hold for a little bit, came back and said same exact deal for $138.  So i'm doing it. I'll write on this space what happens - i think I'm looking at 8-10 weeks after I return the box, which should come in 2-3 biz days.

ASG83 · Answer

I have exactly the same problem with my XP install.

Vista Install runs perfect.

I can boot off the battery, and continue using my system in XP that way. But once I plug-in the AC power I cannot take it out, since it results in System not responding, display going black and I need to switch-off the system to reboot.

I am not sure if this could be BIOS related.

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Battery fully charged - laptop not responding

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