"plugged in, not charging" problem

[deetrumpet]

Norman, the battery is eight years old and functions properly, but misreports its mAh capacity and state of charge? And you know its capacity in terms of how long it powers the computer on battery-power alone? Some people might think an eight-year-old laptop battery with those characteristics has substantially outperformed its useful life. -- Brett

[ndiamond]

"the battery is eight years old"

Yes.

 "functions properly, but misreports its mAh capacity and state of charge?"

Functions semi-properly because it misreports its capacity and state of charge.  The firmware has not degraded during those 8 years, the firmware has bugs which at least don't have to be inherited by firmware of new products.

"And you know its capacity in terms of how long it powers the computer on battery-power alone?"

Yes. (Estimate rather than know, but it's obviously more than 1 mAh.)

"Some people might think an eight-year-old laptop battery with those characteristics has substantially outperformed its useful life."

The only thing it has to do is keep the PC running for a few minutes when the AC cuts out, so either the user can jiggle the cable to see if reconnects, or Windows can hibernate to avoid losing work in progress.  In fact the latter occurs.  The former would be possible if the battery reported its capacity and state correctly.

The PC has trouble handling Facebook because of Facebook's scripting, but newer PCs would have the same trouble.  The PC handles other things that my wife does just fine. 

I'll probably update it to Windows 10 in a while.  Microsoft thinks it can't run Windows 10 because AMD (ATI) didn't certify a video driver, but Google found recommendations by some talented people about which video driver would work.

We often send PCs of that age to a country where AC power is intermittent, where battery power is needed more often due to defective transmission lines rather than glitchy adapter.  I sure won't complain if you donate newer PCs to people in such countries, and the people there will be happy.  I donate what we can afford.

[deetrumpet]

Ah, it forces a hibernation when it shouldn't. You had indeed previously mentioned that. My apologies. That is indeed a big nuisance, particularly when combined with an intermittent AC power source.

[Sepster]

There is a center pin inside the plug from the charger which is to insert into the middle of the charging port on the laptop. Mine was bent (was wondering why the charging plug didn't feel like it was seating right) and found another post on another website which mentioned looking at the pin. Pair of small tweezers and bent the pin back into the middle (supposed to float in space, was pushed to the sidewall) and the problem is solved. Went from "pugged in, not charging", white light at charging port to "piugged in, charging" with an amber light.

All this time, it coincided with my upgrade to Windows 10. Figured it was a software issue related to the upgrade. I recovered the bios for the laptop (turn off machine, push and hold windows + b and then push power key for a second and then let go of everything and watch the magic), removed the ACPI compliant control method battery... all for naught. It was the darn bent pin. Hope this helps some of you out there. Only took me a few hours over the course of a few days to finally figure it out. Hope none of you have to beat your heads as hard.

[Whatever999]

Not True. Computer manufacturers have strategic relationships with Microsoft. Consumers cannot be expected to play technical middleman between hardwareand software vendors.

[Keiki]

I have an HP dv-7373a Envy laptop and the process of uninstalling the Microsoft ACPI method battery does not fix the problem for me. I've updated all my drivers from the HP site, but my BIOS is dated 8/4/2014 (UEFI SMBIOS version 2.7) and there is no BIOS update available for my system at this time.

At the time of this posting, after just performing the ACPI uninstallation process, my battery reports "96% available (plugged in, not charging)", which is what it's been doing all along. Of course, the percentage varies as the battery discharges, but that's the only variable. It has never charged while plugged in to AC power while I'm in Windows 8.1 and working. It also does not run off AC power when the battery is in the laptop. However, when I remove the battery as part of the ACPI uninstallation process, it will boot up on AC power and may or may not show the little red icon indicating that no battery is present.

I might also add that it won't run indefinitely on AC power with no battery in the laptop. At some point, with no warning, it will just abruptly shut down. By the way, I'm on my third AC adapter in an effort to fix this problem, having thought the problem might be my adapter or power cord. It's not. My battery tests at the local retail battery shop here in Phoenix as fine, so it's not my laptop battery either.

It appears this is a major issue occurring with all makes and models of laptops, Windows 7, Windows 8 and 8.1, and Windows 10. When is someone going to get this fixed for your paying customers? Frankly, I don't care if it's HP or Microsoft that gets it fixed, it just needs to happen. It's been a problem for years, so what's goin' on????

[Keiki]

I totally agree with Whatever999! However, it's apparent that computer manufacturers and Microsoft don't. They continue to ignore this problem since it first occurred with Windows 7 years ago.

Obviously, they really don't care...and THAT'S a fact.

[cony-goa]

mk-mk ur brialliant

[gabristar]

God will bless u, it worked. my laptop started charging after following all the steps

[Nienhuser]

So, I tried turning off the computer and removing the battery and plugging it back in and turning it back on.

Now the computer doesn't even recognize that it's plugged in.