Laptop runs out of battery while powered off

[mrmike16]

Hi,

This laptop has had it's own terrible past, but recently I found that if I turn off the laptop, leave it alone for a day, and turn it on again, it states that the battery is extremely low and needs to be plugged in before going into Windows. I don't click Sleep or Hibernate, I click Power Off. I even disabled Fast Startup. It's a Dell Inspiron 15-5547 with a Seagate 500GB SSD, 8 GB of RAM, 4th Gen Intel i5 processor, and runs on Windows 10 Anniversary.

Also, sometimes the laptop turns on to a blank screen, with only the backlight on the keyboard turning on. The fans make some noise and then there's only the back-lit keyboard. Only way to get it to do anything when this happens is to cold boot. This has been happening even after reinstalling Windows more than twice.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

...No one?

 

[JollyGreenGiant2]

This sounds like two different problems to me. The battery maybe bad, is there any place where you are that can test it for you?

The problem with the screen could be numerous, but it could be linked to the battery issue, does it do it while the laptop is plugged in?

 

[1shado1]

Sounds like the battery might be shot, as JollyGreenGiant2 has suggested. No clue about the display issue.

 

[velo3100]

I have a feeling the battery maybe worn out which would explain why the battery drain is so much. As for the display, have you tried pressing the escape key as it sometimes brings the login screen. If that doesn't work, try putting your password in and press enter as this might log you in. Otherwise it could be that the battery is not giving enough power to the laptop or the charger is not giving enough power to the screen which could cause it. Otherwise it could be a driver issue with the display.

 

[mrmike16]

So I didn't mention that the battery is not bad, and that it's capacity is fine when the laptop is on, just not when it's off. Sorry about that. But I found the culprit- I saw the laptop at night, running. The screen wasn't on, and neither was the SDD indicator, but the fans and the backlit keyboard were on. I had to shut it off using the physical power button. It was on that same blank screen problem as I had mentioned in the original post. Maybe it is the display? I have no idea.

Now I'm trying to figure out how to stop it from turning itself on from a completely powered off state, besides removing the battery (which isn't so easy to remove).

 

[velo3100]

It could be that windows is corrupt. I say this as if it was the display, then it would remain off rather than just hanging when it shuts down. You could try and do a clean install of the display driver for the laptop.

 

[mrmike16]

It could be that windows is corrupt. I say this as if it was the display, then it would remain off rather than just hanging when it shuts down. You could try and do a clean install of the display driver for the laptop.

Well, I tried turning off Hibernation completely and running a malware scan. I also made sure Maintenance isn't allowed to wake the computer for scheduled maintenance.

I will try the display driver if none of that works- which I will know by tomorrow.

Also, I should mention that when it shuts down, it shuts down completely. It just has been randomly turning back on after a while. And only once- when I caught it running and shut it back down, it didn't turn back on for the rest of the night. When it was running like that, or when it wakes up from sleep running like that (with the screen off), the backlight of the LCD and keyboard are both on.

 

[mrmike16]

So I was wrong, since I'm not currently the user of the laptop- My father is. The problem is actually this:

The computer isn't turning itself on, it's actually not turning off (Sometimes)!

I saw my dad turning it off, and while the screen turned off, I noticed the fans were still going.  I pressed a key, and sure enough the backlight on the keyboard turned on.  But everything else seemed to be off.  The Caps Lock key's light did not illuminate when I pressed it as it normally would.  I had to force it to shut down using the power button and holding it for a few seconds, until the backlight turned off, and the fans did as well.
So this makes more sense than it turning itself on from a completely powered off state, but I am still clueless.

And yet, after making sure it was off last night and checking to make sure it was STILL off a couple of hours later, my dad tried to turn it on the next morning and the battery was completely dead. Not even enough power to tell him to plug it before it gets to Windows, like it normally did with this issue. Plugged it in and it turned on. I am really not understanding this laptop...I blame it on Dell replacing it's motherboard with a bad one, but it's not under warranty now.

Sorry for all the trouble...Any suggestions?

 

[velo3100]

Try this, drain the pc's battery until it runs out of battery completely. This will prevent it from going into a deep hibernation. Then plug it in and wait for it to fully charge. Then unplug the laptop and wait for a day. This will tell us if it is the battery that has been affected by the change in motherboard. Also did you do a clean install of all the drivers for the motherboard?

 

[mrmike16]

Good idea, I will try that as soon as the laptop is available again. The clean driver installs I will do as well. It was a clean Windows install, though.

 

[mrmike16]

So, we aren't using the laptop as often so it was hard to tell, but the issue is still there. I believe it is either the new Solid State Drive, since I don't remember this issue occurring before we moved (Which is when I installed the SSD), or the motherboard replacement since Dell definitely gave me a worse one than it originally had. I'm going to go with the SSD, since the laptop is out of warranty. I'll contact Samsung and I'll see what they can do.

Thanks for your efforts! I really appreciate it.