Loud electronic crackling/buzzing sound + screen flickering after being charged for some hours

[chinmay_p]

Should I do the battery diagnostics again?

I too found it fishy that only one of the 4 was showing any charge.

[Huffer]

Yeah run it again to be sure it is not a glitch

[chinmay_p]

Is there any other place to do the advanced diagnostics that you mention? Or it's the same one I am doing?

As in the advanced results that you mentioned.

[Huffer]

That is the advanced output from the battery test.Mine also only takes a very short time so that is not a problem. You are doing it right. 

[chinmay_p]

The battery still shows charge only on one cell. Tried it multiple times.

Also, shouldn't the charge capacity be near 80 or 90% of the design capacity? It is 61 now

[Huffer]

I will say it again. That is a sick battery. The results do not make sense. How could it have even 61%  original capacity with only 1 cell holding a charge? My best guess is all your problems will go away if you get a new, good battery. 

[chinmay_p]

So should I try updating BIOS/try using a different adapter/get a new battery?

The battery must be having that 61% capacity, because it does run for about 4 or 5 hours on light or mid usage.

[Huffer]

Yes I think  the chip is bad resulting in erroneous readings and I would replace the battery right away. Post back if you need help with that. The battery chip is the source of the readings. It is as susceptible to problems as any other piece of electronics. 

[chinmay_p]

The laptop is still within the extended care pack warranty of 2 years, but it is out of the 1 year warranty from purchase.

How do I know if the battery is covered or not? Because the there is the One Time Battery Replacement Service under the Care pack. I dont know if I am eligible for that.

Also, the official HP page for my laptop model says that the battery is a 2 cell one with 41 Wh capacity. So why is the details page showing 4 cells? 

[chinmay_p]

I installed the HP PC Hardware Diagnostics softpaq which has the same component tests.

There the battery diagnostics returned the following test log:

CeementBatteryCheckResult: 11

DevicesSupported: 1

DeviceCount: 1

Primary_ACPowerOn: False

Primary_ACAdapterOk: True

Primary_TestresultString: OK_NO_AC

Primary_DesignCapacity: 5350mAh

Primary_FullChargeCapacity: 3264mAh

Primary_RemainingCapacity: 3152mAh

Primary_MaxError: 0

Primary_CycleCount: 440

Primary_Voltage: 8072mV

Primary_Current: 64628mA

Primary_DesignVoltage: 7700mV

Primary_Status: 224

Primary_CellVoltage1: 4030mV

Primary_CellVoltage2: 4048mV

Primary_CellVoltage3: 0mV

Primary_CellVoltage4: 0mV

Primary_SerialNumber: 60064 04/08/2016

Primary_ManufacturerName: 313-54-31

Primary_BatteryCTNumber: 6FRQN11CF21KUT

Primary_Warranty: 3

Primary_CalibrationType: 1

Primary_ChargeControl: NotSupported

Primary_TempCharge: True

Primary_ChargeTest: False

Primary_ChargeCapacity: 61

Primary_TempAlarm: False

Primary_DeepDischarge: False

Primary_FullCharge: False

Primary_FullChargeStatus: True

 Primary_BatteryCharge: True

Primary_DesignCycleCount: 1000

As the battery has only 2 cells according to the HP webpage of au-003tx model, isn't it correct? It is showing charge on both the cells.