Laptop battery won't charge

#1

Since last week, the battery of my laptop (Packard Bell easynote MX-65) won’t charge. I can still use it when connected to the mains, but it won’t charge the battery. When I plug it in, and hover over the battery icon in the taskbar, it says “0% available, connected to power source, battery won’t be charged”.

I have this laptop for about 4 years now, so no more warranty. A new battery starts at €75, which I can’t afford at the moment. I usually don’t use it on the road, so it’s not a huge pain in the ass. But are there any possible fixes that don’t involve buying a new battery? Could it be a software problem, or dirt in the connector?

#2

Battery is dead, get a new one

#3

or power supply issue (which is on motherboard)

#4

This happened to one of my laptops about 5 years ago. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong, and the battery would have been almost as much as a new laptop. Eventually, it wouldn’t work even if it was plugged in.

#5

Shortly after I got my desktop my laptop completely stopped working unless it was plugged in

#6

One possible way you can see if it’s a battery issue is try turning it on with the power cable connected with the battery in, when my dell laptop battery died it blatantly refused to boot unless the battery was removed. Of course it was a huge pain in the ass because the battery had a rubber foot on it so it wouldn’t sit still on a desk.

#7

It boots with or without the battery in.

I just discovered that it even boots with just the battery. So it’s not completely dead, it just won’t charge. One thing that comes to mind, although it shouldn’t matter, is that recently I put it on hibernate while traveling with the laptop in my bag.

#8

Try to discharge it fully, put it in a plastic bag and then freeze it for a few days. Let it thaw out at room temp for a day then put it back into your laptop. Worked perfectly with my old laptop a few years ago.

Could just be that a fuse has gone kaput in it.

#9

theres basically no way to rejuvenate a lithium-ion - you should try fully discharging once and fully recharging in case its just the firmware getting confused, but if its actual degradation of the battery (which is inevitable after a few years) nothing is going to help im afraid - try ebay for cheap batteries, some nice men in hong kong can probably sort you out with a cheap one, bit of a coin toss on quality though

#10

Yeah I’ll repeat what was said a few times. Completely discharge the battery and then fully recharge. Oh wait did you say it won’t charge in the first place?

#11

my point was more than all the freezer stuff etc isnt going to do anything :stuck_out_tongue:

#12

It’s charging again. Completely discharging it seems to have done the trick. Thanks for the help!

Edit: I was a bit too quick. It says it’s charging, the battery indicator light is on, but after more than an hour it’s still stuck at 0%.