Laptop will not charge, will work on AC but not on battery

mjaymb

Prominent
Jan 26, 2018
3
0
510
Howdy!

I have a Toshiba Portege Z930 with Windows 10. A few weeks ago, my laptop stopped working on the battery - when I pull the AC Adapter it instantly shuts off. It works only on the AC adapter

When I power on the laptop, it will say "plugged in, charging", then it will simply say "X minutes until fully charged" - the percentage will never change, nor will the minutes. It just hangs there.

What I have tried:
- The whole ACPI device manager cycle (removing battery and all that)
- I tried a different battery
- I've tried updating the BIOS
- The battery will not charge even if the laptop is powered off
- Fresh install of Windows 10
- Booted in safe mode, the battery icon is just absent
- Booted without the battery, it recognizes that it's not installed
- I don't see anything blown on the mobo.

I still have yet to try a new AC adapter (no friends have the same laptop, and I can't seem to find it at local stores so I have to order online).

Anything else I could try?
 

sly4fox

Prominent
Jan 28, 2018
1
0
510
Hello,

I have the same issue with an Z830...

my Toshiba Z830 all an sudden started to immediately turn off when the AC adapter was plugged off. (It would not continue to run on battery, as it did before.) My first thought was that the battery is dead, and replace it. Unfortunately same behavior.
When it is powered by AC adapter the yellow battery indicator is yellow, which means charging. In win10 the battery indicator in the taskbar shows fully loaded 100%.
When switching the computer off, and still powering from AC Adapter the yellow battery indicator is on, switches off for a short time, and is on again. There is also some noise associated to it.

Batterymon software shows current capacity 33415mWh, 15.12V Charging 100%, Charge cycles N/A. Another software shows 0 calibration of battery.

I already tried the PC does not power up procedure. Take battery out, AC adapter disconnected. Press power button for 30secs. Install battery again etc. Did not help as well.

What I can not figure out is if this is a hardware failure of the power switching circuit or some crude software issue.

I'm fine with electronics and equipped, have no fear of soldering even small SMDs if necessary.... but without any schematics where to start.....

Anybody having an idea, or had the same issue and fixed it?
Your help would greatly be appreciated. I like this PC, has everything I need, this is the only annoyance, and a new one with the same features (ultrabook, i5, SSD etc.) , would cost roughly the same as this one years ago........
 

mjaymb

Prominent
Jan 26, 2018
3
0
510
Did you try a new charger? I am about to do that, hopefully it will help.

What I don't understand, is that even with a new battery that is technically charged, why it won't work off battery power. It kinda makes me wonder if it really is the charging mechanism, since the new battery should be fine.