Battery Charging is Sporadic (Acer 5755)

sundomain

Ok, I've got a tricky one for y'all. At least that's what I think since I haven't seen this posted before.

My Acer 5755 battery charges only sporadically; meaning that every time it's connected to power there's no guarantee that it'll start charging. Needless to say this is frustrating. But I have found a workaround that works every time I do it.

1. Remove battery.
2. Connect laptop to AC power and turn on.
   
3. Reconnect battery
4. Voila! the battery starts charging.

I have also noticed that simply turning on and off from the wall socket doesn't affect this; meaning that the battery usually charges when this is done. However, when the adapter jack is removed in re-inserted, the issue almost always happens.

Any one have a clue of what's going on here?

Thanks in advance.

billsey

Batteries these days have a little bit of smarts built in, to force charging to stop if the voltage in the battery gets too low. This is to remove the chance of overheating and potentially fires. The problem is the smarts really aren't all that smart and they get confused on occasion. The normal approach to the issue is to reset the battery, which makes it start over with gathering data. On the newer machines they often put a battery reset button in behind a pin hole and you can do the reset without opening the system up. If yours is old enough to not have the hole the proper procedure is to disconnect power, open the system, disconnect the battery, then press and hold the power button for 15-30 seconds to bleed off any residual. Wait 15-30 minutes and plug the battery back in, reconnect the power and wait for a full battery indication, then turn it on. That full reset should allow for a fairly long time before it's needed again. Connecting the battery while the system is powered up is a bit risky, I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of damage if the timing isn't quite right...