Lenovo Laptop stuck at 0% plugged in, charging

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Agni__

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Jun 21, 2017
3
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510
Hi

I own a Lenovo Ideapad 500-15ISK. It is only about 2 years old. It runs Windows 10, and has been a smooth sailing experience until a battery issue came up from the last 5 days.

At first, the battery % would drop very quickly. But it would charge up perfectly, or as normal!
Then, later on, it started to get stuck at 5-6% showing plugged in, charging, but it would not go up. The time to fully charge up showed a bizarre 5 hours 20 minutes.

From today, it is stuck at 0%, plugged in and charging. No estimated time to fully charge up is shown.

I am guessing the battery may be at fault.

The Power option is at balanced default settings. The adapter is working as I can now only run the laptop while plugged in. And it runs fine. So I don't think the adapter is at fault here.

But while searching for a solution I came to this point - sometimes updating the BIOS helps.

So, I checked, and it turns out the my BIOS is from 2016 while there is a perfectly recent (April, 2018) BIOS update available for my laptop model on the Lenovo official site.

I think it's necessary to update the BIOS, but do you think it just might solve my problem?

Also, how do I update the BIOS? I haven't done it before. I download the BIOS file, and keep the laptop model serial numbers and stuff in hand and then do what? Sorry, if it sounds really noob, but I am kind of at a loss!

Any help is greatly appreciated!!

Regards
 
Solution
The battery went below it's minimum safe voltage and has blocked charging... had it happen to me on an old acer
[0% is unusual as laptops usually have a "safe" 5-7% minimum reserve to prevent this exact issue] most lithium ion battery packs will not charge through a "smart" charge device if they are completely discharged because of the built in battery protections not being able to detect the empty cells because there is no internal power to do the initial check.

the solution was to find the + and - terminals for charge input with a meter and hook the battery to a 5v 200mah "wall wart" from an old phone and keep an eye on it to be sure not to get too hot (no warmer than the outside of a porcelain coffee cup with fresh coffee)...

Lutfij

Splendid
Moderator
1| Make sure you're on the latest BIOS update. If you have multiple version between your current BIOS and the latest on the site, make sure you update each BIOS and work your way up to the latest, don't just jump to the latest.

2| You can then create your bootable installer using Windows Media Creation Tools and have it handy in case the issue isn't resolved. For this step, you should backup all your critical content.

3| If you think #2 is complex, you can backup your critical content and try a repair install.

You download the executable, make sure you're plugged into the wall with the power adapter and then right click installer with Run as Administrator and let the updates take place.
 
Nov 3, 2018
1
0
20
The battery went below it's minimum safe voltage and has blocked charging... had it happen to me on an old acer
[0% is unusual as laptops usually have a "safe" 5-7% minimum reserve to prevent this exact issue] most lithium ion battery packs will not charge through a "smart" charge device if they are completely discharged because of the built in battery protections not being able to detect the empty cells because there is no internal power to do the initial check.

the solution was to find the + and - terminals for charge input with a meter and hook the battery to a 5v 200mah "wall wart" from an old phone and keep an eye on it to be sure not to get too hot (no warmer than the outside of a porcelain coffee cup with fresh coffee). After 15 minutes my battery was barely warm and i put it into the # important part # Already powered on and running device # it only put the battery at 2% but it began charging through normal means again.

As for the Bios...
updating is risky and not recommended unless absolutely necessary (Most computer manufacturers actually say NOT TO update bios unless a serious startup issue or similar problem is experienced) if you can get the battery to have at least 1% it should work fine afterwards.
 
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