BleepingComputer.com: Laptop Dies Despite Having Battery Left

Hi,

I have an HP Pavilion dv7 running Windows 7. Recently, my laptop has been dying, even if it has plenty of battery left. It NEVER dies when plugged in. I can leave it on for hours, no problem. However, when unplugged after about a half hour to an hour it will die, without fail. Trying to turn it on again after this happens gives no results. However, if I plug it in, it will turn on no problem. I have no idea what to do about it and could really use some help. Thank you!

Your battery might be defective or maybe it's time to replace to your battery. Is it still under warranty? P.S. It seems very difficult to get a response around here

This post has been edited by Mike19865586: 16 January 2012 - 10:57 PM

I can't get another battery under warranty unless they take it in and run some tests to make sure it's not my fault but the batteries...I would love to do that, but I'm in college and I use this everyday for assignments. I was just hoping to find out what the problem really is before I do anything...if I can fix it from home, I'd want to do that. (It's under warranty from Best Buy...they've given me nothing but problems)

When is the last time you updated your motherboards chipset driver? Maybe you should check to see if any updates are available. Also, if that fails you could try updating the BIOS (At your own risk).

And please, if the issue persists, do not take it to the Geek Squad! They will rip you off or make the problem much worse, thus charging you for something that you never needed in the first place. We have a local laptop repair shop here called Laptopxchange (Maybe you have one there). Call around and see what some of your local repair shops have to say about the problem, some of them might be willing to give you free advice over the phone.

This post has been edited by Mike19865586: 17 January 2012 - 01:04 AM

Mike19865586, on 17 January 2012 - 01:01 AM, said:

Checked those. Both of them are up to date.

What's happening is that Windows is misreporting your battery life, leading you to believe that it has lots of power left. It's possible that the battery has absorbed too much moisture or have suffered some other problem.

I would suggest first recalibrating the battery. http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&docname=c00817650

Then I suggest downloading and installing SIW. Run the program and in the menu bar click Hardware > Battery. Right-click the right-side information pane and select Copy to Clipboard. Paste the contents into your next reply.

When you purchased the laptop? Does the laptop is under the warranty? It is always a best practice not to drain the laptop battery to much. So that the laptop battery will have longer life.

LucheLibre, on 18 January 2012 - 02:05 AM, said:

EDIT: Actually...it did work. The program I use that tells me how much time I have left actually shows how long the battery takes to charge. And, when I unplug it, it says I have "0:00" time left for my battery -_-

I Tried re-calibrating the battery...it died after 15 minutes and the computer still thinks it has 86% battery left. Here is the information for SIW as well.


Property Value
STEVENHP (Hewlett-Packard HP Pavilion dv7 Notebook PC)
Battery 1 Properties
Name Primary
Unique ID Hewlett-PackardPrimary
Designed Capacity 71040 mWh
Fully Charged Capacity 58652 mWh
Current Capacity 51978 mWh (88%)
Designed Voltage 16694 mV
Wear Level 18 %
Estimated Charge Remaining 88 %

This post has been edited by spisaksj: 18 January 2012 - 09:57 AM

HP Battery Check
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00821429&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=us&product=3795434&rule=22408&lang=en

Where do I get HP Battery Check? › The Third item down will tell you where.

That is the definitive method to determine if the battery is good or bad. Also if you can warranty the battery, you will probably need the test results to convince them.

Quote

As a periodic thing it never hurts to check the Laptop makers website and see if they have any battery recalls for you battery too.

Cheers

This post has been edited by rotor123: 18 January 2012 - 01:49 PM

rotor123, on 18 January 2012 - 01:48 PM, said:

Ah that would do it. Battery check says it's faulty and needs replacement. I guess that would be the problem. Thank you for all your help!

spisaksj, on 18 January 2012 - 03:49 PM, said:

That was my guess from what you described but before jjumping to conclusions verify so as to not just be throwing money at the problem. As you can see there is a lot of smarts in today's batterys. When you buy a cheap clone who knows what is inside there.

Were you lucky enough that the battery was under warranty or recall?

Anyway Good Luck
Roger

spisaksj, on 16 January 2012 - 11:06 PM, said:

Print out the HP Battery test results and go get them to do the warranty! How long did the battery test take? If you have to stand there and run it to convince them..............

I suspect they hate to actually do the warranty they sell. Not to mention it is my understanding they send hardware problems out and before that happens you better have a complete clone of your hard drive from some of the rantings I've seen on the Internet. BTW you should have a complete clone anyway just in case.

I talked to someone last year that had a Sony laptop and best buy warranty on it. He said he'd rather pay and get it fixed local instead of losing it for over a month the like the last time they fixed it.

Also make sure you have made the recovery discs. It isn't if a hard drive will die it is when.
Just like my Black ink ran out as I was printing homework on a sunday evening after everybody was closed.
It is never at an opportune moment that these things happen.

This post has been edited by rotor123: 18 January 2012 - 05:55 PM