Plugged In, Not Charging Weirdness

[bingefeller]

Hi guys,

I was using my laptop off the battery this morning as I forgot to turn it on at the mains.  The battery pack was still connected to the computer, it just wasn't turned on via the mains.  When I did turn the mains switch on, whilst the AC adapter was still connected, I noticed the battery icon said "plugged in, not charging."  Funny thing is that the battery did appear to be charging! 

If I have the computer running off the mains, then plug out the plug on the side of the computer, to use it on the battery, then I plug it back in it always seems to say "plugged in, charging."

Is this behaviour normal or do you think it's a sign of an impending failure on my battery>?

[bingefeller]

Hi Rich,

Yes - I do have Sony Firmware Extension Parser Device installed.

Do you think it is a problem with my battery, given the fact that it does charge even when it says it's not?

[rich912]

Hi bingefeller,

No I don’t think you have a battery problem as such.

As the Battery Care function and some other functions are missing from Power Management I believe it is a software issue.

Let’s see whether Support can come up with any ideas on this...

Rich

[bingefeller]

Thanks for all your help, Rich.  It's much appreciated.  I didn't know you could forward these message board topics to the Support Team. 

[rich912 · Accepted solution]

Hi bingefeller,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

I’m informed that your model does not have the Battery Care utility, so the support page is somewhat misleading.

Support suggest trying the following:

A battery reset (if possible): put the battery in a different unit and charge it to 100%, discharge it on that other unit. Put the unit back in the original unit and use as usual.

This also maybe related to ISB utility, which you can disable from msconfig under startup, battery will need to be removed and unit booted on AC power for this step to work.

Finally I would recommend a clean system reinstall.

Digging around on Google I have found a few reports of the same or similar problem. One particular thread has a number of suggested fixes, some of which seemed to have worked for some people.

http://qa.social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itproperf/thread/a983eb5d-fbc5-4b36-9fc5-9d24d4db...

It’s a long thread but the following suggestion stood out as possible solutions:

1) Disconnect AC

2) Shutdown

3) Remove battery

4) Connect AC

5) Startup

6) In Device Manager under the Batteries category, right-click the ACPI Compliant Control Method Battery listing, and select Uninstall.  Do this for each instance (I had 2 batteries installed, so 2 instances.  Most users will only have 1).

7) Shutdown

😎 Disconnect AC

9) Insert battery

10) Connect AC

11) Startup

I hope this is of help.

Rich

Message was edited by: rich912

Message was edited by: rich912

[bingefeller]

Hi Rich,

Many thanks for the reply.  I think that I will try the method where I uninstall the ACPI and see what happens.  Just one more thing - if I uninstall this ACPI will it automatically reinstall when I put the battery back in?

Thanks again!!

Message was edited by: bingefeller

Message was edited by: bingefeller

[rich912]

Hi bingefeller,

That would certainly be my approach.

Good luck and let us know how you get on...

Rich

Sorry, missed your edit. Yes Windows will automatically reinstall this on boot.

Message was edited by: rich912

Message was edited by: rich912