Aspire A315-21 new Acer battery not charging

Hi,

I've replaced a battery for someone who purchased a new, original battery from Acer (2020/04 is on the sticker). Other than the battery, the laptop (A315-21-49UK / NX.GNVSA.013) is pristine (was rarely used by an elderly lady who has since passed away). The interior of this laptop is as-new.

However, the battery isn't actually charging. I unplugged the SSD and inserted/booted a live Linux USB. It shows the battery as “charging 29%”, but if I remove the power cable, the laptop shuts off immediately. I do know about the battery reset button as well as the chassis button to press in order to power it up.

All connections are firm and secure. The power connector is intact. There's nothing visually wrong. I also tried another, known-good power supply and that gave the same results.

When the power cable is in and the orange “charge” light is on, the battery never gets warm. Eventually, one of the two lights will go blue, with the other orange.

BIOS is V1.02. I know some models need a BIOS update to deal with this issue, but if the original battery charged, why should I need to do this? I'm very hesitant to attempt a BIOS flash as I have no battery-backup if the power fails.

Photos attached.

Thanks in advance!

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TracyFortune

How do Acer support people NOT come to the forums to help?

Is that all there is to Acer, as a product? This is a brand new battery provided by Acer? And it doesn't charge.

What are your ideas to fix your battery issue?

JackE

Boot to Windows plugged in. The post a screenshot of battery condition as follows--

(1) Search 'cmd' in Windows start menu.

(2) Right click command prompt near top of menu.

(3) Click run as administrator.

(4) Enter 'powercfg /batteryreport' at command prompt.

(5) Then return to the desktop. Open file explorer.

(6) Then search for' battery-report.html' in the c:\windows\system32\ sub-folder. Double-click to open it in the browser.

(7) Post screenshot of the first part of the report if possible that compares design full charge capacity with its remaining full charge capacity.

TracyFortune

It is plugged in and when the battery icon is hovered it says "30% available", the little "plug" icon is showing that power is plugged in, yet it is not charging. In the time it took me to get the drive out of the bottom chassis and connected, set up the new user acct (this is a fresh install of Win 10), and get the screenshot/snip, the battery has not gone up from 30%. Thank you for your time.

JackE

>>>When the power cable is in and the orange “charge” light is on, the battery never gets warm. Eventually, one of the two lights will go blue, with the other orange.>>>

With the laptop turned off and plugged in, does the orange LED ever turn to blue? It might take up to 24 hours for a new battery pack.

TracyFortune

I'll give it 24 hours and would be thrilled if that's it, but that doesn't explain the fact that it has no power at all even though it says it's at 30%. Then there are all of the posts I found where it took a BIOS update to fix the battery not charging issue. See you in 24.

TracyFortune

Update: it's now just after 9pm (9.5 hrs charging) and both lights are orange and flashing slowly. The one nearest the A/C port is bright orange and the one closest to the USB ports is pale orange (though I think it's just reflecting the other's light & not lit on its own). No change on the 30% charge & battery is still cold. I'll leave it overnight and hope the house doesn't burn down.

JackE

>>>Update: it's now just after 9pm (9.5 hrs charging) and both lights are orange and flashing slowly.>>>

Hold on! Only one LED should be blinking! If both are blinking, the laptop is NOT turned off. It must be turned OFF! Press and hold power button till only one LED is active either blinking orange or steady orange

TracyFortune

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1164854#Comment_1164854

I do know when a computer is powered on (worked in hardware for over 20 yrs). The laptop was completely shut down. When I plugged in the power cable, the LED nearest the power port went orange. 9 hrs later, the light started its slow flashing. As I said, it looks more like the other is merely glowing from the light from the first LED. In fact, with this unit, you must hold a button on the underside of the motherboard in order to boot up at all.

JackE

OK. If the battery charge LED is still blinking or steady orange, keep it plugged in to another 12 hrs to see if there's any change.

TracyFortune

So, it's now the following day, same blinking is happening. Can you speak to the posts at this forum and elsewhere relating to a BIOS flash fixing the not-charging battery issue? I just wish I had a UPS. It would be my luck to have a freak power cut just at that moment (I'm near Perth and it's not uncommon). 🙄

JackE

While I don't think it is worth the risk of bricking the machine, you can download, unzip and try to install the lastest BIOS firmware from this link. The latest includes all the changes made in earlier versions. The firmware installation will sometimes halt if it detects a bad battery --- even a new bad battery.

If the new battery couldn't be properly conditioned before even trying to use it in the laptop for the first time --- meaning it was plugged in and charge LED turned from blinking orange to solid orange to solid blue --- then it's more likely that it was in a very low critical state of charge to begin with. This can happen with a battery sitting on vendor's shelf too long without being charged..

TracyFortune

"If the new battery couldn't be properly conditioned before even trying to use it in the laptop for the first time --- meaning it was plugged in and charge LED turned from blinking orange to solid orange to solid blue --- then it's more likely that it was in a very low critical state of charge to begin with. This can happen with a battery sitting on vendor's shelf too long without being charged.."

That's exactly what I think.

However, Acer's "own" certified parts company for Australia (infinitycomputer.com.au), have stated I must pay to ship my entire laptop and their dead battery, to the other side of the country, for testing. "If" they find it bad, I'm still out the shipping (which is insanely expensive here and takes weeks). That's assuming they're honest about it. Otherwise, they're going to charge me $25 to return ship (they get the shipping discounts, I don't) + $50 for diagnostics. I'm thinking I'll just report them to our ACCC for no warranty on a dead battery that's already 2.5 years old. Insult to injury, it cost triple what I could have paid on Ebay-- AND I would have gotten free return! 🤬

JackE

Do you have any local laptop repair shops that could take a look and give you an estimate?

TracyFortune

My gripe is that the authorized parts seller for Acer is selling 2-3 yr old, dead batteries and then trying to shirk the warranty. On top, when they receive it they can literally say anything, and I'd have no leg to stand on. I know this laptop is pristine because I recommended the purchase and was the only person who ever looked at it + the old lady was just not interested so it sat, basically unused. They charged $123.50 for a dead battery for a low-end laptop. Any more money tossed at it now is money in a hole.

I was hoping an Acer rep might show up to offer something before I file a formal complaint. This is ridiculous. Imagine you buy a car battery and it fails to turn over immediately. You go back into the shop, and they say they'll need to tow your car across the country so they can test it (at your expense, both ways).

JackE

>>I was hoping an Acer rep might show up to offer something before I file a formal complaint.>>>

Sorry. You've posted to an Acer users forum here. We're only users trying to help other users like you. We're not employees, customer service reps or authorized parts sellers. So it's unlikely that an Acer rep will show up here to offer you something that would change things much other than maybe temporarily get your hopes up for a while longer. I might be wrong about this but I suggest that you go forward and do what you feel the need to do on that basis. Good luck.

TracyFortune

I understand this is a user's forum, and I appreciate your time & effort tremendously.

It doesn't excuse Acer, as a company, at all. This is merely more of the, "frog in the pot", imo. Expect less and less and be grateful. I wholly disagree.

If Acer were a reputable, decent company, they WOULD assign reps to these forums. It reminds me of "free" and unpaid elderly workers at any number of shops here and elsewhere. The fact that they don't check in to help here and the fact they employ places such as infinitycomputer.com.au to try to back out of AU warranty is shocking.

And yes, I'll be lodging a complaint. If it only makes them work harder at their shirking, so be it. I hope it costs them more than the cost of this laptop.

Thank you very much for your attempt to help.

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