Acer Battery Question

[Allan John Mearns]

Hi
I have an Acer Aspire 5920G It came second hand with no battery, it runs perfect via AC power.

However I really wanted to have the option of using a battery so bought one.

The battery when plugged from new says 56% available (plugged in, charging)
The battery LED is lit up now and is orange. The thing is if I remove the AC power the notebook straight away shuts off as if there was no battery installed at all. Further the % of charge has not risen from the 56% and it had been turned on for quite some time now.

Any ideas on what could be the cause of this will be greatly appreciated.

Regards
Allan

 

[WyomingKnott]

In all likelihood, the battery was shot when you got it. Can you return it? Where did you get it from?

 

[Allan John Mearns]

In all likelihood, the battery was shot when you got it. Can you return it? Where did you get it from?

Well I got it off eBay from a company who sell notebook batteries.

Although they offer a 36 month warranty it was only $20 so not worth the expense to send back as shipping is about half that.
Also it being a second hand notebook I have no history of it so it could be a problem within the notebook

The charge icon shows it's charging animation for about 30 secs then stops. I left it turned off but plugged into AC overnight and the battery icon was green by morning, but it will not start up on battery power at all.

And it still says 56% available (plugged in, charging)

 

[anomaly297]

It could be a bad battery, bad laptop, or maybe just a voltage/amperage mismatch. Do you know if the current battery is actually the right one for your system? You could check the manufacturer's website or contact them to find out what it originally used, if you haven't already done so. I tried calling about my Aspire 6530 earlier this evening and they offered to sell me an identical replacement of what it originally had.

 

[Allan John Mearns]

It could be a bad battery, bad laptop, or maybe just a voltage/amperage mismatch. Do you know if the current battery is actually the right one for your system? You could check the manufacturer's website or contact them to find out what it originally used, if you haven't already done so. I tried calling about my Aspire 6530 earlier this evening and they offered to sell me an identical replacement of what it originally had.

Yeah, I'm starting to think it is the laptop itself that's the problem. It is a replacement for my model and the voltage and amperage match the original specs.

Thanks for your input much appreciated.

Allan

 

[buggaby]

Can you put a battery tester or a voltmeter/ammeter on the battery to verify it's got charge? Obviously, the best would be to find another model of the laptop and test the battery there, but maybe that's not easy.

 

[Allan John Mearns]

Can you put a battery tester or a voltmeter/ammeter on the battery to verify it's got charge? Obviously, the best would be to find another model of the laptop and test the battery there, but maybe that's not easy.

Hi buggaby
Thanks for the suggestion. Yes I've done that and it has power.

Thing is if I leave it off but with the AC adapter on overnight the battery light goes green.

Starting up on AC the battery icon in the task bar says 100%, however removing AC power and it shuts off. restarting with AC and the battery icon says 55% battery.

And no it would not start with just the battery. 🙁

 

[buggaby]

Hi buggaby
Thanks for the suggestion. Yes I've done that and it has power.

Thing is if I leave it off but with the AC adapter on overnight the battery light goes green.

Starting up on AC the battery icon in the task bar says 100%, however removing AC power and it shuts off. restarting with AC and the battery icon says 55% battery.

And no it would not start with just the battery. 🙁

Sometimes batteries have this behaviour where, when there is no load drawing current, it will read fully charged, but as soon as you try to do anything with that, it suddenly drops. The issue you are facing could be the computer (reading incorrectly, charging incorrectly) but I would guess it's the battery. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to test.

My highly convoluted idea, and maybe more of a mental exercise: You could set it up to a light bulb as a resistor, if you don't have a normal circuit resistor on hand. A 60W bulb is maybe 60Ohms of resistance, so every 6V from the battery will give you 0.1A of current. If you check the voltage output of the battery, you could guess how much current should come from it (making sure that that number isn't going to be higher than the current your batter can source). An ammeter in series will tell you what it's outputting if it's too small to turn on the bulb. If the voltage of the battery drops right away, you know the battery is kaput.

That, or ask a computer tech...

 

[Allan John Mearns]

Hi buggaby
Thanks for the suggestion. Yes I've done that and it has power.

Thing is if I leave it off but with the AC adapter on overnight the battery light goes green.

Starting up on AC the battery icon in the task bar says 100%, however removing AC power and it shuts off. restarting with AC and the battery icon says 55% battery.

And no it would not start with just the battery. 🙁

Sometimes batteries have this behaviour where, when there is no load drawing current, it will read fully charged, but as soon as you try to do anything with that, it suddenly drops. The issue you are facing could be the computer (reading incorrectly, charging incorrectly) but I would guess it's the battery. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to test.

My highly convoluted idea, and maybe more of a mental exercise: You could set it up to a light bulb as a resistor, if you don't have a normal circuit resistor on hand. A 60W bulb is maybe 60Ohms of resistance, so every 6V from the battery will give you 0.1A of current. If you check the voltage output of the battery, you could guess how much current should come from it (making sure that that number isn't going to be higher than the current your batter can source). An ammeter in series will tell you what it's outputting if it's too small to turn on the bulb. If the voltage of the battery drops right away, you know the battery is kaput.

That, or ask a computer tech...

With a meter attached it says the notebook is receiving 11.1v which is what the battery has printed on it.

The specs for the notebook are 19v and 4.74A this battery has printed on it 11.1v and 5200mah/Wh
Not sure if this has anything to do with it.

It runs great as a desktop so that's maybe what it will have to be as I've run out of ideas, having stripped it right back to having the mobo out and removing everything checking cables, ribbon cables plugs etc,etc.

One of life's unsolved mysteries I'm afraid

 

[buggaby]

With a meter attached it says the notebook is receiving 11.1v which is what the battery has printed on it.

The specs for the notebook are 19v and 4.74A this battery has printed on it 11.1v and 5200mah/Wh
Not sure if this has anything to do with it.

It runs great as a desktop so that's maybe what it will have to be as I've run out of ideas, having stripped it right back to having the mobo out and removing everything checking cables, ribbon cables plugs etc,etc.

One of life's unsolved mysteries I'm afraid

Those numbers are really fishy. When testing for compatibility, the current rating is not that important (you just need to make sure it doesn't force too much current through). The voltage, however, is very important. e.g. If you put a laptop charger on a laptop with a different voltage than the rated on, you'll get weird charging behaviour at best, but you may very well damage the laptop's battery or charging system (depending on the voltage difference). I would check those ratings you quoted, and triple check that the battery is correct for the laptop. I can check into your specific laptop and battery model myself, but it will have to wait a bit.

 

[Allan John Mearns]

With a meter attached it says the notebook is receiving 11.1v which is what the battery has printed on it.

The specs for the notebook are 19v and 4.74A this battery has printed on it 11.1v and 5200mah/Wh
Not sure if this has anything to do with it.

It runs great as a desktop so that's maybe what it will have to be as I've run out of ideas, having stripped it right back to having the mobo out and removing everything checking cables, ribbon cables plugs etc,etc.

One of life's unsolved mysteries I'm afraid

Those numbers are really fishy. When testing for compatibility, the current rating is not that important (you just need to make sure it doesn't force too much current through). The voltage, however, is very important. e.g. If you put a laptop charger on a laptop with a different voltage than the rated on, you'll get weird charging behaviour at best, but you may very well damage the laptop's battery or charging system (depending on the voltage difference). I would check those ratings you quoted, and triple check that the battery is correct for the laptop. I can check into your specific laptop and battery model myself, but it will have to wait a bit.

Thanks for the suggestions. I bought a battery that was stated as a replacement for my notebook. I checked some other suppliers and they also had listed batteries with different voltages some were 10.8v / 11.1v 6 cell and 14.4 / 14.8v 8 cell

I'm not sure what the original was as it came without a battery.

 

[buggaby]

[/quotemsg]

Thanks for the suggestions. I bought a battery that was stated as a replacement for my notebook. I checked some other suppliers and they also had listed batteries with different voltages some were 10.8v / 11.1v 6 cell and 14.4 / 14.8v 8 cell

I'm not sure what the original was as it came without a battery.[/quotemsg]

I did some more reading. Apparently, it's quite common to have a 19V supply with a 14V battery. I'm not sure why. Maybe the 19V is an open-circuit rating (i.e. not under load) and it drops when actually charging. But it appears that it should be ok. Sorry for the side-trip. Back to square 1. I'm not sure what to suggest, though, other than contacting the seller of the battery or finding some way to test it. But given that the battery is not expensive, and you've put a lot of work into it already, I guess it's up to you what to do. If you continue, you may not save too much money, but at least you'll likely learn something.

Good luck! And if you find a solution, I'd love to hear it.

buggaby

 

[Allan John Mearns]

Thanks for the suggestions. I bought a battery that was stated as a replacement for my notebook. I checked some other suppliers and they also had listed batteries with different voltages some were 10.8v / 11.1v 6 cell and 14.4 / 14.8v 8 cell

I'm not sure what the original was as it came without a battery.[/quotemsg]

I did some more reading. Apparently, it's quite common to have a 19V supply with a 14V battery. I'm not sure why. Maybe the 19V is an open-circuit rating (i.e. not under load) and it drops when actually charging. But it appears that it should be ok. Sorry for the side-trip. Back to square 1. I'm not sure what to suggest, though, other than contacting the seller of the battery or finding some way to test it. But given that the battery is not expensive, and you've put a lot of work into it already, I guess it's up to you what to do. If you continue, you may not save too much money, but at least you'll likely learn something.

Good luck! And if you find a solution, I'd love to hear it.

buggaby[/quotemsg]

Yeah no worries. It will make a good desktop back up for my wife. Or I might sell it locally as is. Like I said it runs great on AC.
Any way thanks for your help. Much appreciated.

 

[Allan John Mearns]

Yeah no worries. It will make a good desktop back up for my wife. Or I might sell it locally as is. Like I said it runs great on AC.
Any way thanks for your help. Much appreciated.