Battery not charging...

I have Acer Aspire V3- 571 windows 8.1 and i recenlty ran into a strange problem. I have been using my laptop since Janauary 16 2013. Now as soon as i try to charge my laptop it gets charged for a while eg. 10 secs 14 secs or few minutes and then it stops charging and the Power light and the battery charging indicator light as well was the light on the power on switch starts blinking. The same problem occurs when i try to charge the laptop when it is off as well as when it is on. So i don't think that there is any low power supply problem in the charger. I removed the charging plug and plugged it again and it charges for a while and the same problem is repeated again. There is no loose connection with the charging pin as i removed the battery and plugged in my charger and the laptop works fine without the battery. I shook my laptop and checked and it was still working fine. But with the battery it shows the above problem. Smiley Sad

I did some research on the internet and i removed the battery and then pressed the power button for few minutes and inserted the battery again. I did many times but the problem is not gone. If somehow by plugging in the charger again and again, i manage to charge my battery full, it gives a nice backup of 2 to 3 hours so i doubt if the battery is dead. And once the battery is full there is no such problem too. It simply says the battery is fully charged and AC plugged in indicator is shown. I have the most recent BIOS update too. I also tried to uninstall the Microsoft ACPI enabled control method battery driver and reinstalled it by refreshing but still the problem is not fixed. Is Acer laptops full of such problems. Are we desperate to watch and waste our money on unknown issues?? Please help me with this problem doing some expert research. Regards,

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JackE

While powered down and no charger, try pulling the battery and re-inserting a half-dozen or so times. Then re-insert one last time and, while applying continuous manual pressure to the battery, see if it charges normally. Report back.

Thanks

Jack E/NJ

nic1

i have this exact same problem with a v3 571 using windows 7home basic. Could there not be a bad connection between the charger input port and the connector on the motherboard... infact where would one find a dissassembly manual so i can check proper... although i have already dismantled before finding this post... silly me, but i have not done too badly at all. i want to test the cable running from the power input port to the motherboard, i can only think that that could be the reason. question to ace.... why would doing the in and out thing help, would that be maybe the contacts arent making proper contact? i discovered while all plugged in and pushing power button repeatedly the blue light comes on every other press or so. also im not getting the 10 second charge light like the windows 8 machine anymore... it has just totally stopped... if i charge the battery somehow i think that may help... im gna get my boets acer aspire battery so i can get power and run a few tests using hirens maybe. just the lights coming on now and then with every press tells me no power is been kept... my boet did charge this battery in his laptop and it did charge so it cant be the battery neither... he ran out of ideas and now its by me. could anything possibly be wrong on the board? i hope for an speedy suggestion, if i make any discoveries then i will post ok.

JackE

nic1>>>why would doing the in and out thing help, would that be maybe the contacts arent making proper contact?>>>

Yes, you are correct, that is what I was thinking.

You have some good ideas to test for other possibilities that might require some disassembly to access the ribbon cables and check for bad connections. Here is a video of disassembling/re-assembling the V3 series which may be a more useful guide to you than any hardware manual avalable. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcAMlm2_FvY

Good luck

Jack E/NJ

jjkuest

I have the same problem and I have been trying to fix it (on and off) for 8 months. I have 2 identical Gateway NV56R laptops (Acers). 1 of them stopped charging the battery and it even stopped running off the power cord (at the same time). The computer will only run on a charged battery. It will not run on the power cord (with or w/o a battery installed) and it will not charge a battery (whether the computer is turned on or off). What I had to do was charge batteries with my good laptop but use them in the broken one. Basically, when I plug in the laptop, the indicator light on the front left of the computer and the Windows Battery Management software both say that it is "Plugged in and charging". Then after 15 seconds, the indicator light goes off and the software gives me the life of the battery, like it does not think that it is plugged in. No warnings, messages, or balloons to tell me what happened. Here is a video of the event (http://youtu.be/483H--CY_i8).

Since I had an identical laptop, I easily eliminated the power cord/charger and the battery. So I bought a new DC jack and installed it. Nothing. I marked it up as a bad motherboard and lived with it. Months later, I performed a system recovery just incase it was a corrupt device driver. Nothing. I am not having any luck finding information on the charging circuitry for these computers. I have taken it to several computer repair guys and have struck out with all of them. They say that I need a new motherboard but they cannot tell me what is wrong with the one that I have to convince me that this will fix the problem. Is there anyone knowledgeable enough to help me diagnose this issue so that I can get it fixed?

JackE

You might want to check to see if the bios versions are the same on both machines.

Jack E/NJ

jjkuest

Bios is the same on both, 1.07.

JackE

If newer version is available, I'd try flashing the bios in the problem machine.

Jack E/NJ

jjkuest

Since I can only run on battery power, it will not let me update the BIOS. Since I am the same version as my good laptop, this shouldn't be my problem. Any other suggestions?

JackE

>>>Since I can only run on battery power, it will not let me update the BIOS. Since I am the same version as my good laptop, this shouldn't be my problem. Any other suggestions?>>>

A bios update, if available, should still be possible as long as the machine will start. Doesn't matter if it's running on battery only. What operating system is on your machines? Due to mfr variations in the same models, the same bios version sometimes act differently. This is sometimes referred to as a 'glitch' or 'bug'. Accordingly, you should still check carefully if bios updates are available and try to apply them to the problem machine only.

Jack E/NJ

jjkuest

When I run the bios update exe, it tells me to plug into a power source. I clicked continue and it does not let me proceed. It keeps telling me to connect the computer to a power source. The bad computer ran fine for over a year with this BIOS. I cannot run the update on battery power.

JackE

OK. What operating system does it have?

Jack E/NJ

jjkuest

Both computers are running Windows 7 64-bit. It is what came on the computer originally.

JackE

Have you booted to the command prompt or safe mode and tried to run the exe file from there yet?

Jack E/NJ

jjkuest

OK, I have updated the BIOS to the latest and greatest, and the problem still exists. The problem is that the computer only recognizes that I am plugged into the power outlet for 15 seconds and then it does not recognized the plugged in status. While I was updating the BIOS, I checked that this condition was present in SAFE MODE and it is.

JackE

>>>I marked it up as a bad motherboard and lived with it.>>> I have taken it to several computer repair guys and have struck out with all of them. They say that I need a new motherboard but they cannot tell me what is wrong with the one that I have to convince me that this will fix the problem.>>>

I now tend to agree that it is likely a motherboard issue. Even if you had its cirucit diagram, I doubt it would help much due to the complexity, interdependence and microscopic size of the components and connections. About the best we can assume is that there might be a break/crack that developed in a solder connection or line trace --- a more common issue nowadays with lead-free solders and production methods. Accordingly, if you want to live dangerously, you might want to try a MB solder reflow in a preheated convection oven. Just google "motherboard solder reflow" for some youtube demos such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu265ucL7IU