Laptop freezes/crashes. Is my battery dying?

sqwerty

Honorable
Mar 19, 2013
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10,510
By crash I mean either a hard shutdown or a freeze where everything on the screen freezes and stops responding 100% until I perform a hard shutdown. Hard shutdown happens a little more often but both are regular.

Info:
- Asus UX31E ultrabook
- Laptop never crashes when on mains power
- Crash frequency on battery increases as battery gets lower.
- Crash frequency increases as CPU load gets higher.
- Crashes most regularly when switching from battery to mains power and vice versa.
- Battery life seems normal
- Happens equally on different OSs (windows and various linux distros)
- Have tried various BIOS versions.

So, for example, if I run Prime95 and unplug/plug in the power it will almost always freeze/crash, even at 100% battery. Also I can get away with some light use (browsing etc) on battery power if the battery life is fairly high. It's unlikely that battery will get down to 30-40% without crashing. By around 20-30% the laptop will crash very soon after boot.

So it sounds like either the voltage output from the battery is more unstable than normal or that some of the hardware is dying and can't handle the normal voltage fluctuations when on battery power or switching to/from battery. Does this sound right?

How likely is it to be a dying battery? Debating whether or not to spend £60 on a new battery. I want to be as sure as possible that the battery is at fault here before I do...

Any help is appreciated thanks!
 


Hi :)

Seriously doubt its the battery...wrong symptoms...

All the best Brett :)
 

scottiemedic

Distinguished
Feb 10, 2010
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18,960
I would venture to guess the CPU fan. When plugged in, it's probably in 'active' cooling state and not under battery power, where it will take a passive profile. Might dig around in the BIOS a bit and see if there are options for the fan, or download Speed Fan, and see what it reports for the CPU fan (if it's able to read the header in the laptop) and see what it shows...