running a Eliebook 840 g5 without battery over USB-C/Thunderbolt

[WasieJen]

Hello Everyone,

I bought a used Elitebook 840 G5 without a battery and without a power supply and wanted to run it over a Thunderbolt 3 docking station (20V - 6,75 A) . But I can not get a beep or a blink of any led out of it. Also tried with a USB-C Charger (20V 3,25 A) and USB-C monitor (65W PD) but no reaction at all. I expected to at least to get the laptop to be booted into the BIOS.

So does it need the battery to even start over usb-c/thunderbolt?

I am reluctant to buy an original charger or a new battery to test out more without even the slightest sign of life. 😄

(sorry if I may have posted my question into the wrong board before xD)

[TzortzisG]

Hello WasieJen.

According to your laptop's manual, HP offered 45W and 65W USB chargers for its TB port. These business models usually work without the internal battery. You can see a discussion about such a config here: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-Notebooks/HP-Elitebook-840-G5-won-t-boot-unless-both-batterie...

There can be various reasons for your system to remain bricked when connected to a USB-C power source and no battery. The most obvious one being that either the charger is incompatible or the port has.....died.

Your setup should have worked. You will have to do some testing to see why it doesn't. Personally, I'm not sure it's worth it.....

[WasieJen]

Thanks for your reply.

I tested further and bought cheaply some used original hp power supply, a slim docking station and a third party battery.

With only the power supply or dockings station connected there was still no reaction from the Notebook.

With the battery the notebook worked as long as the battery had some charge. Bios was accessable and everything worked just fine.

But no charging via power supply possible.

So this unit seems to have a defekt on the way from any powerable port to the battery.

I am now in talks for a replacement unit.

Concerning the worth if it:  I think for the price this notebook with the docking station might be a good second home server for testing and I might migrate some vms to it that are sensitive to power interruptions - hence the battery which was originally planned for a later date. 😄

If I get a replacement unit I will test again if it is possible to run it over USB-C or the docking station without a battery and will write an update, just so there will be a definitiv answer to the question.

thanks again