Aftermarket battery not recognized by Windows. Need to change BIOS setting?

I have an Acer Aspire 5375-6694 laptop. The battery is no longer holding a charge for very long, so I ordered an aftermarket replacement battery on eBay. The battery fits in the slot and appears to be charging (based on the flashing light) but Windows tells me "No battery is detected." When I pull out the AC power, the laptop shuts off. I contacted the eBay seller who suggested I update the BIOS version, then go into the BIOS and choose POWER-->Start Battery Calibration, and then update the battery to "known."

I checked my laptop's BIOS version and it shows v1.10. However, the Acer Drivers and Downloads support site shows the latest BIOS version for my model is v1.08 (https://www.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/support-product/556?b=1). So somehow, my laptop already has a newer version!

Also, the BIOS has no "Power" setting that I can find.

So my questions:

Do I need to revert my BIOS back to v1.08 in order for Windows to recognize this battery? For what it's worth, the battery I am replacing is also an aftermarket battery, and that one is recognized by Windows without issues.
Is there somewhere within the BIOS that I can get to a "power" setting? While searching Google, I've seen other BIOS references that show an "Advanced" tab. This is missing from my BIOS version. Is there a trick to get to advanced BIOS settings?

Thanks for any help or tips.

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Commodore_1995#

Try uninstalling and deleting the AC adapter and battery drivers in the device manager, and then turn off the notebook. Then perform the power reset: turn off the notebook, disconnect the power adapter and the battery, and then press the power button for 60 seconds.

lytleric

egydiocoelho said:

Try uninstalling and deleting the AC adapter and battery drivers in the device manager, and then turn off the notebook. Then perform the power reset: turn off the notebook, disconnect the power adapter and the battery, and then press the power button for 60 seconds.

I'll give that a try. Will I need to reinstall the drivers, or will Windows do that automatically?

Commodore_1995#

Windows will download the drivers automatically.

lytleric

That didn't work. I uninstalled both drivers, performed the power reset, and when I turned the laptop back on, it still does not recognize the battery.

I contacted the seller of the battery and they told me to send it back. Even though it fits, for some reason my laptop doesn't like it.

aphanic

lytleric said:

That didn't work. I uninstalled both drivers, performed the power reset, and when I turned the laptop back on, it still does not recognize the battery.

I contacted the seller of the battery and they told me to send it back. Even though it fits, for some reason my laptop doesn't like it.

Inside of batteries there are a number of things, that I know of:

The cells themselves, depending on the battery there are different chemistries and forms. For example some have 18650 cells and other (modern ones) use rectangular Li-Po cells.
A battery management system, in charge of balancing the charge of the various cells. For example controlling one doesn't get charged too much while the others remain to be charged.
Protection circuitry, in charge of preventing disasters like overcharge, over-discharge, discharging too quickly, over current, etc.
A (many times proprietary) circuity in charge of ID, reporting and talking to the computer. Think of it as the circuitry that reports some inkjet cartridges to be empty when refilled manually for example.

If that last part is dodgy, or original but has been tampered to report erroneous or advantageous things (like more capacity than there actually is), the laptop could understand no battery is present. I think that's where the problem lies in this case, and no software fix would be available for it, only sending it back to the seller I'm afraid (although sometimes the cost makes it unwise).

If you end up returning it for a refund, I'd suggest trying a different seller.

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