(Sorry, very long post, I write too much)
Just got done fixing a friend's laptop. She told me one day that the battery would not hold a charge and that if she unplugged the charger from the wall, the laptop would just shut off. So my initial thought was "Okay, that means your charger is working and your battery needs to be replaced." So I just had her order a new aftermarket battery online from eBay. She puts in the new battery and it is partially charged when it arrives in the mail, at like 37% and the laptop works on battery power. She and I both think the problem is solved, discards old battery, and she's happy.
However, a few minutes later when she plugs in the adapter, it says it is charging but it doesn't actually charge (like it would just stay at the same percent charge and not increase). So I then go and pick up the laptop from her so I can mess with it at home. I google a bunch of stuff, do the whole power off, hold the power button for 40 seconds, turn back on... all that stuff. That didn't work. Then I update BIOS, that doesn't work. Try to mess with battery drivers in the device manager, couldn't really get any success. So I'm thinking maybe the circuit that powers on the laptop from the power adapter works, but the circuit that charges the battery doesn't. But I still continue on doing other things.
I then realize that the laptop will not power on with the adapter only. Also, it sometimes won't power on with the adapter and battery plugged in, and sometimes it will. But it won't ever work with the adapter alone or the battery alone. So I'm thinking maybe the adapter is going bad too.
I then scrounge around my place and find another HP compatible charger and HP battery. I pop them both in and it works! Charges and everything. The laptop now powers on also with the adapter in alone, or the battery in alone. I then take the "new" battery that she had ordered online that wasn't charging and put it in another HP laptop, and that "new" battery also has the same issue in another HP laptop. So I'm pretty sure she was sent a defective battery.
The thing that doesn't make sense to me, is she initially told me when the problem arose that the laptop would work fine when plugged in, but would shut off if she unplugged it from the wall. That would lead me to think it was a bad battery and that the charger was fine. But then when I tested it, the charger would not power on the laptop alone, but it would power on the laptop sometimes when used in conjunction with the bad battery. So weird.
Could it be that in a short time period the charger started to go bad in a manner in which it would not charge her original battery that she discarded, but the power adapter would still power on the laptop if a bad battery was plugged in also? Also, can a bad battery and bad adapter semi-work together enough to power a laptop? Because when I received the laptop, the power adapter would not power on the laptop alone, it had to have the bad battery hooked up to sometimes power it on. It's also possible she may have originally had a decent battery (the one she discarded), and that the main issue was a semi-working charger.
Basically, I'm asking anyone to make sense of this. What do you think originally was the problem? The battery, the charger, or both? Remember, she originally said the laptop would not work when unplugged from the wall, but it would work when plugged in. But when I received it, it would not turn on when plugged in with adapter alone. It only would turn on sometimes when both the "bad battery" and the "bad adapter" were used together.
Just kind of confused as to what any of you true tech guys think. I'm not really that great with this stuff, and figure someone may be able to make more sense out of this than I can.
Just got done fixing a friend's laptop. She told me one day that the battery would not hold a charge and that if she unplugged the charger from the wall, the laptop would just shut off. So my initial thought was "Okay, that means your charger is working and your battery needs to be replaced." So I just had her order a new aftermarket battery online from eBay. She puts in the new battery and it is partially charged when it arrives in the mail, at like 37% and the laptop works on battery power. She and I both think the problem is solved, discards old battery, and she's happy.
However, a few minutes later when she plugs in the adapter, it says it is charging but it doesn't actually charge (like it would just stay at the same percent charge and not increase). So I then go and pick up the laptop from her so I can mess with it at home. I google a bunch of stuff, do the whole power off, hold the power button for 40 seconds, turn back on... all that stuff. That didn't work. Then I update BIOS, that doesn't work. Try to mess with battery drivers in the device manager, couldn't really get any success. So I'm thinking maybe the circuit that powers on the laptop from the power adapter works, but the circuit that charges the battery doesn't. But I still continue on doing other things.
I then realize that the laptop will not power on with the adapter only. Also, it sometimes won't power on with the adapter and battery plugged in, and sometimes it will. But it won't ever work with the adapter alone or the battery alone. So I'm thinking maybe the adapter is going bad too.
I then scrounge around my place and find another HP compatible charger and HP battery. I pop them both in and it works! Charges and everything. The laptop now powers on also with the adapter in alone, or the battery in alone. I then take the "new" battery that she had ordered online that wasn't charging and put it in another HP laptop, and that "new" battery also has the same issue in another HP laptop. So I'm pretty sure she was sent a defective battery.
The thing that doesn't make sense to me, is she initially told me when the problem arose that the laptop would work fine when plugged in, but would shut off if she unplugged it from the wall. That would lead me to think it was a bad battery and that the charger was fine. But then when I tested it, the charger would not power on the laptop alone, but it would power on the laptop sometimes when used in conjunction with the bad battery. So weird.
Could it be that in a short time period the charger started to go bad in a manner in which it would not charge her original battery that she discarded, but the power adapter would still power on the laptop if a bad battery was plugged in also? Also, can a bad battery and bad adapter semi-work together enough to power a laptop? Because when I received the laptop, the power adapter would not power on the laptop alone, it had to have the bad battery hooked up to sometimes power it on. It's also possible she may have originally had a decent battery (the one she discarded), and that the main issue was a semi-working charger.
Basically, I'm asking anyone to make sense of this. What do you think originally was the problem? The battery, the charger, or both? Remember, she originally said the laptop would not work when unplugged from the wall, but it would work when plugged in. But when I received it, it would not turn on when plugged in with adapter alone. It only would turn on sometimes when both the "bad battery" and the "bad adapter" were used together.
Just kind of confused as to what any of you true tech guys think. I'm not really that great with this stuff, and figure someone may be able to make more sense out of this than I can.
