Asus Zenbook (UX31E) Battery Glitch

[legosexual]

I've looked it up on here and this seems to be a problem that happens from time-to-time. The problem is that this was marked as solved when the solutions weren't correct, and I haven't really found a proper solution yet, but hopefully I can offer a little bit of insight.

I work at a computer repair store, but I mostly do the customer service side of things while the engineers don't deal with the customers. A lady brought in her Zenbook which had charging issues.

Basically, the battery charges, but the screen shows that the battery remains at a constant 10%, even though the battery is clearly charging more than that. The customer said she could unplug her laptop, and it would work for about a half hour, then it would shut down. Then she would turn it back on, it would work for another half hour, and shut down again. It does this repeatedly until it fully drains.

We thought it was a bad battery, so we replaced it, and the newer battery simply wouldn't work at all. So, we put the old battery in, and now it's working again properly, however, we almost didn't want to put it in because this battery got a little tiny bit puffy, but the engineer said not enough to really worry about. We're going to mention this to the customer as well. She's an engineer and seems to have a good understanding of these things so we're not too worried about her not responding well to this information.


So, this is speculation since it's working now, but I've seen almost identical issues online and the solutions are always suggesting them to replace the battery, but since we did that and the new battery was bunk, does anyone have any other ideas of what could possibly be the cause here? Could it be a firmware issue? Are there other tests you suggest we try?

 

[Prostar Computer]

Almost certainly not a firmware issue. Batteries have their own circuit board that regulates, monitors, and reports info about the battery status and condition. Also, firmware would not be responsible for a puffy battery; that sounds like the cells expanded a little too much.

As much of a battery-isolated problem as this sounds like, you guys could be looking at a problematic board. We see quite a few seemingly battery-related issues roll in and out of our facility that actually end up being a faulty circuit on the mainboard, prompting a motherboard rework or replacement.

 

[legosexual]

I was thinking it could possibly be the motherboard as well but our engineer didn't think so, but if she brings it back because the issue returns we're going to get a motherboard and take out the cost that she already put to a battery. I'd just hate to do it and have that not be the final solution which would mean a customer not paying for a lot of expensive work :-/

We don't charge for a no-fix, so I'd want to be super sure before getting it.

Thank you for your input! I think you might be right, but was hoping someone might know some other miracle solution :-(

 

[legosexual]

And I will pick yours as a solution in about an hour or two, just figured I'd leave it up for a little first!

 

[Prostar Computer]

Thanks! So cool that you all don't charge for a no-fix. Lots of shops and techs will at least charge a diagnostic fee to make up for their time invested. Should that system come back, good luck with it.