laptop - Battery recharge functionality broken due to short in AC adapter?

08
2014-07
  • Jan

    I have a problem recharging the battery of my netbook, an ASUS Eee PC 1025C.

    Since last week the LED of the AC adapter doesn't light up when it is connected to the wall. The netbook won't turn on with the AC adapter plugged in (even if the battery is present). But I can turn it on using the battery alone.

    To get rid of the problem I replaced the AC adapter with another one. Now I can turn on the netbook using AC power (with and without installed battery). But charging the battery no longer seems to work.

    Moreover, if the other AC adapter is connected to the netbook - even if it is not connected to the wall - the LED of the adapter lights up.

    What can be the reason for this? Do I have to replace the battery as well? Will this solve the problem?

    • Answers
  • Julian Knight

    It sounds like there is a short in the original charger. It could be in the charger or maybe the wire to the laptop is damaged. If not that, as @Pathfinder states in his comment, this may be the result of a power spike.

    It is possible that whatever caused the original problem actually damaged the laptop so if your new power supply is the right kind, the laptop is probably a write-off I'm afraid.

    Regarding the replacement power supply, all modern electrical and electronic equipment is pretty relaxed about input power levels. After all, they tend to be used all over the world and many parts of the world have very poor electrical services.

    There are 3 possible figures to check on a power supply to make sure it is compatible with your laptop. The output voltage, output current (in amps) and the output power (in watts). You need 2 of the 3 values.

    The output voltage should be the same as the original power brick though the system might still work on a lower voltage. That can't be guaranteed though. You don't want a higher voltage even though the laptop would, almost certainly tolerate it (up to a point).

    The output current needs to be at least the same or higher than the original otherwise the laptop will not be able to get enough power.

    You might see the output power in watts instead of the current. Again the power needs to be the same or higher than the original.

    So in your case, the new power supply should indeed be fine.


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  • Jeff F.

    My Sager computer has been having a strange issue with the charging. For a long time it would be working perfectly as long as I was active on it. After I'd leave idle for a while it would suddenly decide it didn't want to use AC power anymore and would just discharge the battery until it shutdown because of low battery levels.

    Was not a huge deal to me since I just sent it to standby when done with it and it worked fine.

    Recently, however, it would not detect AC power while the battery was in. It ran from the battery just fine but until you powered it down, unplugged the battery, then plugged in the AC adapter it would not be on AC. In addition if I plug the battery back in after it's on AC power, it will see it but the battery won't charge though it can still discharge it. This is OS independent.

    I tried both a replacement battery and a replacement AC adapter. Neither solved my issue. I'm fairly comfortable opening and servicing a laptop but I don't know where to start. I'd like to avoid replacing my system board if possible.

    Any Ideas?


    • Related Answers
  • user63547

    I've seen this before with a similar MoBo. Have you tried updating your bios? That fixed it for me.(I made an account because this took like 2 weeks for me to figure out)

  • Shinrai

    As I said in my answer to your last question, if swapping the battery and AC adapter hasn't solved the problem it's almost certainly the charging mechanism of the motherboard. As Dan M. says in the comments, it's probably worth looking around inside the machine to make sure nothing is loose (the design of these things can vary a LOT from vendor to vendor) but odds are it's something integrated to the board, so you're going to have to end up replacing the whole thing (unless you can see something that obviously needs to be resoldered or the like).

    EDIT: Since we've discovered the true culprit here, let me just add that you should ALWAYS UPDATE FIRMWARE before you go to the extent of replacing hardware. Generally if you're not having a fluke problem, the manufacturer knows about it (even if they don't explicitly say "We have problem X, this will fix it!").