The battery symbol on the bottom claims that its plugged in but not charging
My Dell computer isn’t working properly. The battery symbol on the bottom claims that its plugged in but not charging. Unfortunately, whenever I pull the charger out, my laptop immediately shuts down.
Most likely your problem is related to the battery. Apparently the battery is not working properly and cannot power the laptop when the charger is unplugged. The first thing to do is testing the laptop with another known good battery, if you can find any.
If the laptop works fine with another working battery, your battery is bad and you need a new one. If you still experience the same problem even with a new battery, most likely there is a problem with the motherboard.
March 24th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
This isn’t true, as hundreds, if not more, people are having this same problem with an array of different laptop brands, and the one thing they all have in common is Windows Vista. And they ALL can’t be having motherboard or battery problems. And so far, the only solution I can find is to take out the battery while the cord is charging, then put it back in. But that isn’t working for me, so I am still on the prowl for an answer.
April 8th, 2009 at 11:43 am
I have an older COMPAQ ARMADA E500. The battery charged perfectly when the old O.S. was Windows 2000 Professional/Windows NT Workstation 4.0
When I recently upgraded to XP Home, the laptop saved the old O.S. as well as installing XP.
The battery still charged perfectly w/both 2000 and XP. When I erased 2000 and only had XP, the battery takes MANY DAYS to fully charge. It discharges normally but then takes days again to fully charge. All charging indicators work correctly. I even uninstalled the power management utility and rebooted hoping Windows would reinstall any missing drivers as per a suggestion posted earlier @ USB ports. I am reluctant to purchase a new battery when I am sure the problem is systemic. PLZZZZZZ help.
April 17th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
I have a similar problem. Bubble over battery icon says; battery plugged in (not charging). I have a Satellite A135-S4407 with Vista, home edition. What is weird is this: It only happens about every two/three weeks. I can’t believe, therefor, that it is a motherboard problem, or a battery problem, or the ac plug. It is tooooooo intermittent. When I get the message above mentioned, the battery discharges very fast…gets to 0% and even though the laptop is plugged in, the laptop shuts down. Then I remove the battery, and surf plugged in only. Sometimes it takes a few times of reinstalling the battery for it to start charging, sometimes it starts recharging right away. I also wonder if it is with the Windows Vista OS. My laptop is over two years old and this problem has only begun happening over the last three months. I have my laptop set up to automatically install updates, so I have now clue if a particular update is the problem. I too have seen the majority of this problem being with a Vista OP, however I did see two that used XP. So….wonder what the heck is up!
April 17th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
OH, it has been about two weeks now since having the problem….Again, very intermittant .
April 18th, 2009 at 9:05 am
Darlene,
It’s possible you have a problem with the AC adapter.
Here’s what you should do in order to narrow down the problem.
Turn on the laptop with the battery installed and AC adapter plugged in and make sure it works properly and the battery is getting charge. Now wiggle the power adapter plug inside the DC-IN socket. Try moving the power cord around too. Can make the laptop fail if you move the plug and cable? Will it stop charging if you wiggle the plug?
If the answer is yes, you have either bad DC-IN jack harness (located inside the laptop) or faulty AC adapter.
Also, when the laptop stops charging the battery take a look at the power LED light on the laptop. This laptop should be on if the laptop gets power from the AC adapter. Is it on when the laptop stops charging the battery?
April 19th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Hello,
My laptop is unable run at all from the battery. It runs fine withthe AC adapter plugged in, and it says that battery is charging but the charge percentage does not change. As soon as I remove the AC adapter, immediately the laptop shut down.
any helpwill be appreciated.
April 20th, 2009 at 12:05 am
i am having a acer travelmate c110 laptop. the problem is that when i put the laptop on mains the laptop starts, while removing the mains the laptop turns off and does not give the back up. the battery is new. if the problem is with the motherboard then plz. give the solution.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:54 am
Hello – My laptop shuts itself off when plugged in. The battery is dead as well. I have a Toshiba Satellite M35X. The a/c power cord was replaced a little over a year ago, so I’m thinking it’s ok. The LED light for the a/c adapter is green, but the battery light is orange. The laptop had not been plugged in for a while, so I am pretty sure that the battery is dead. However, it does not appear that the battery is charging. When I try to turn the computer on I get a screen that windows did not start properly before choose your option, and then it promptly shuts down. I took the battery out and the a/c LED light started blinking and would not power on at all.
Do I just need a new battery?
May 14th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
I HAVE A COMPAQ PRESARIO C700 LAPTOP AND JUST RECENTLY MY COMPUTER DIED…IT WOULDNT CHARGE N TURN ON WITH THE CHARGER I HAD SO I BOUGHT A NEW ONE….I HAD THE SAME PROBLEM…I LEFT IT PLUGGED IN OVER NIGHT N IT GOT A FULL CHARGE BUT WHEN I TURNED IT ON AND PLUGGED IN THE CHARGER THE CHARGER LIGHT WAS STEADY BLINKING N THE BATTERY THING SAID PLUGGED IN, CHARGING FOR ONLY LIKE 5 SECONDS THEN IT WENT TO PLUGGED IN, NOT CHARGING….I DIDNT WANT TO KILL THE BATTERY ALL THE WAY SO I GOT OFF OF IT….THE NEXT DAY I TRIED IT AGAIN AND IT WOULDNT EVEN PICK UP THAT I HAD IT PLUGGED IN….ALL IT DID WAS MAKE THE BATTERY LIGHT N THE POWER BUTTON BLINK AND BLINK….I DONT KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEM COULD BE IF IT ISNT THE CHARGER…IS THERE ANY WAY U COULD MAYBE TELL ME WHAT IT MIGHT BE….ITS NOT FULLY DEAD BUT WONT CHARGE AT ALL WHEN ITS PLUGGED IN…IT JUST MAKES THE LIGHTS BLINK…
May 18th, 2009 at 6:20 am
I have read about this for 4 months now, that’s how long my 2 year old laptop has done this. So, I have ruled out battery, AC cord since many people complaining of this have replaced these with no fix. Also have ruled out Vista op system problem since some people have XP. Also happening with many laptop manufacturers, so I don’t think that is where the problem lies either. So, the other day when my bubble started to read, battery plugged in, not charging, I played with the AC plug; the part that goes into the laptop. Immediately, while gently pulling it out and putting it back in and wiggling slightly, my charging light came right back on. So, I am thinking that it IS the recepticle into which the AC plugs.
June 9th, 2009 at 7:51 am
I have, near enough, the same problem but it says: “Plugged in and charging” but the battery icon still has a red X over it, when I unplug it it’ll instantly shut down. I’ve never had this problem with a laptop before… I have a Windows Vista, which I’ve heard is the problem to cases like this. This is very annoying because it feels more like a Desktop than a Laptop since I have to keep it plugged in for it to work.
June 10th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
How about this one….Laptop will run on battery with the power supply UNPLUGGED but shuts down when the power supply is PLUGGED IN.It charges the battery fine when laptop switched off.
June 22nd, 2009 at 12:38 pm
My laptop charger has well, I don’t know. But it won’t charge while plugged in when I plug it in everday I have to twist around under,over, next to under something else putting pressure on the near top of the plug in just for it to charge. This is plactically a daily rutine. This is my second charger; the other one I had mystiriously just cut open one morning. Ever since I got this one about a week later this happened and its been almost a year.
And now I am now just guessing to get a new charger. But buy the new one in person. Any place where I can get a Windows Vista COMPAQ charger sold seperate but isn’t all that expensive?
Help? Please?
- Jacqueline
July 14th, 2009 at 2:15 am
i have an HP pavillion laptop , it started having problems during the weekend
it started saying that the jack has been plugged in and the other minute it has been plugged out , without me even plugging any had headphone or anything
one minute i can hear the sound from my laptop the other minute i can’t because the jack has been plugged in
pls help
July 20th, 2009 at 12:17 am
I have a Sony Vaio VGN-SZ-120 P/B runing on a BPL2c battery. Initially everything was working well but suddenly one day i noticed that my battery would charge upto 82% and after that discharge to 75%(with AC adapter ON) and stay there for some time and than suddenly shoot up to 100%. However during discharging it would not show any weird behaviour. It would discharge from 100 to 0 with no abnormalities.
Now after one week or so it started going upto 65% discharge upto 50%(with AC adapter ON) and than shoot upto 100% after some time which is longer than taken earlier to shoot from 75% to 100%
Now the acute problem is it starts charging and than reduces to 0% and stay there and shoots up to 100%. All this while no problem observed during discharging. However battery life was initially 3 hrs and now it is roughly 1 hr.
Is this a problem of bad battery or some other problem. I am thinking of replacing the battery but before doing so i would like to have an expert opinion.
Rahul Pandey
August 3rd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
I have an older HP Pavilion dv6000. For about the last year I could only use it if it was plugged in (battery wouldn’t hold a charge at all). Now it won’t even turn on when it’s plugged in. It looks like it is going to start, turns completely off, then starts, turns completely off, ect. (the screen never shows anything, just stays black…I just see the lights start to turn on, then off, then on, then off…).
I’m hoping this just means my battery is completely shot, but am worried it’s a more serious problem. I did have Norton Anti-Virus on the computer. Any suggestions of what I can do would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
August 5th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
I have an Hp pavilion laptop and it won’t charge, there is nothing wrong with the cable because my laptop reads it, but it won’t charge and if I unplug it it turns off immediately, please someone help.
August 7th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
marii,
It’s either bad battery or motherboard problem. You cannot tell until you test the laptop with another known good battery. If the laptop fails with another battery, most likely there is something wrong with the motherboard.
August 7th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Okay Okay. How about this. I have a Compaq Presario F700 notebook PC. I have Windows Vista installed, and when I plug my adapter in it shows that it’s charging, but only for about 10 seconds. The little battery symbol stops moving but when I move my cursor over it, it shows that it’s charging. Even as I’m typing this comment, it shows me that the percentage of the battery being charged keeps going up. When I started typing this it read 42% but only after about a few minutes, it shows 60%. Obviousely the AC adapter works fine because I have my laptop in a powersaver setting so when I plug it in the whole screen lights up pretty bright. Appearantly, for me, this is some kind of Vista bug. I did notice one thing though. After leaving it charged for this long throughout this comment, the little battery symbol goes up gradually instead of being fully animated. Unless this is some kind of new update that Microsoft installed onto this laptop, then I dont really know why the characteristics of the little battery symbol has changed. Sorry for the short-story but i figured I’d throw this in here for those are probably have this similar problem.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:20 am
This is not a battery or motherboard problem on my Sony laptop..it is actually a battery saving piece of software on the Sony Laptop to stop the battery being overcharged and therefore preserving the life of the battery!!!
August 13th, 2009 at 9:50 am
what are the negative and postive terminals on a dell inspiron 9 cell battery?
August 15th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Thanks ever so much for your help. Ive had the same problem so I took out the plug and slowly putting it back in and wriggling it and its charging now up to %100 available and charging..thank you so much.
September 27th, 2009 at 4:13 am
Hi. i have a Toshiba satellite A215-S4747. The system cannon power on once the plug is connected to the computer. when i disconnect the plug, then press the “on” button, it comes on, then i need to reconnect the plug so that the battery will charge. Please help me with this problem.
It can only come on when the plug is not connected (battery power alone), but once it’s on and i reconnect the plug, it operates fine
October 2nd, 2009 at 9:17 am
my wife’s inspiron notebook has a similar problem….her computer will charge with my notebook’s charger but her’s doesn’t work….it says “plugged in not charging” but works fine with mine..so i thought her charger was bad…but then i plugged her charger into my computer to test it and it works fine….?????any answers?
October 27th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
I have a 3 year old toshiba satellite A105 laptop(with windows xp) and had it’s battery changed about 6 months ago, which worked absolutely fine till now with a run time of approx 4 hours.
Problem: PC starts absolutely fine with AC power plugged in, but won’t turn on only with battery. Although the battery shows 100% charged, but laptop shuts off immidiately when I take out the power plug. Don’t know what the problem is.
Please help.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
sumit,
1. Make sure you have the latest version of BIOS installed. I believe Toshiba fixed some battery related problems with the BIOS update. Update the BIOS if needed.
2. Could be bad battery.
3. Could be motherboard failure.
The only way to find out if the problem is related to the motherboard or battery is testing the laptop with another known good battery.
December 1st, 2009 at 10:43 am
My laptop won’t charge the battery. It shows that it is reading the battery in power management, but it won’t charge the battery. I have two batteries and it won’t show it is charging with either battery and they both show about 65% charged.
Is this most likely a motherboard problem? Computer works fine with ac adapter and runs off the battery. Just seems strange that it would read the battery, but won’t charge it.
December 14th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
ok so heres the problem my laptop charges fine but once i try to use it while its charging the laptop freezes and i have to shut it down improperly. i can use the laptop all i want while its not charging, but i cant use it while its charging.. can you help me? you can email me back at colivarez1 AT aol.com thank you.
December 17th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
EXPLANATION FOR LITTLE RED X:
There is something wrong with your laptop’s power system. Most likely, you have a power cord that is going bad. (99 times outta 100 with laptop power issues, it’s the cord – they make em cheap so you have to buy a new one every year or so)
I’d had this issue for weeks, the little red X on my laptop. Then my computer started randomly switching to battery and then losing power, even though it was plugged in. I was lucky, my cord was going bad.
I respliced a new head onto my laptop power cable (I’m not paying 70 bucks for a new one… LOL) and the red X issue went away.
December 23rd, 2009 at 1:49 pm
I have an old laptop an IBM think pad A22m designed for microsoft 2000. The laptop wont turn on but when i plug in thecharger the battery light will show but still laptop wont turn on. So it jst shows me that its charging but wont turn on at all can anybody help i’ll appreciate it thanks.
January 1st, 2010 at 2:19 pm
my brother just ran my laptop out of power it is a hp g60 laptop with windows and when i plug it in it says plugged in not charging i dont understand plz help!
January 12th, 2010 at 9:08 pm
yeah…I got the same thing and hp wants me to send it in because it might be a needle in the port where the charger goes in
January 26th, 2010 at 9:11 pm
I have a HP Compaq Presario c500 I bought new about 2 years ago.
Before this happened my battery had been going from 100% to dead in about 15 mins. I have always used it with the battery in the computer.
Then one day my laptop dies without going into hibernation mode. This has happened before while I had the bottom vent covered, but since then I have been careful not to do that. I tried to turn it on but it would not, I checked the adapter and heard it beeping. I got a new one and the laptop turned on but said there was a checksum error. I told the computer to fix it. Then it started up like normal. I watched a movie, then put the computer into hibernate mode. I started it up again later and the computer only beeped loudly and turned on the mute light. I tried it again then it turned on. It worked normally, with fan running, for about 20 mins. then shut off. The battery would say it was plugged in and charging but would stay at 0%. This cycle of maybe turning on and maybe not, then working for a bit then shutting off continued to happen with the working time getting shorter and shorter each time. When I try using the laptop without the battery the charging light would flash as long as the cord was plugged in.
I then got a new battery and charged it overnight. When I turned it on it started up normally with the battery at 6%. I saw it go down to 5 then 4, then it shut down at 3% after about 40 mins of running. I was able to use my computer for the things I normally use it for in that time.
I then disassembled the computer and found that the power coming from the adapter input to the actual computer read the correct voltage. I tried reconnecting the video display cable as I read this might fix my problem. It did not. I disconnected the keyboard, video, dvd player and hard drive and the charging light still flashes. I also sprayed canned air all around the inside. What is the problem?
June 15th, 2010 at 10:05 am
My HP sometimes says plugged in, not charging, and when I do a battery check it says to replace the battery. But if I shut it off and let it alone for a while, it’ll say plugged in, charging and the battery check says that the battery is in good condition. Why is it doing this?
June 28th, 2010 at 6:54 am
Dropped my laptop and the battery will not charge past 36% and the laptop will shut down if I unplug the AC adapter. Any solutions?
July 20th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Hi all!
I have found myself having quite the issue here, and here it is:
I am the owner of an Acer ASPIRE 6935G wich is around 2years old now.
The problem is that i bought this notebook for the purpose of gaming when im travelling, wich i do frequently.
NOTE: I ALWAYS USE THE NOTEBOOK WITH AC CHARGER PLUGGED IN!
Anyhow a while ago it started charging VERY slow, it charges slow when i surf and idle on it, but the minute i start off a game (wich requires more power..) the battery starts declining rapidly (around 1% per minute with AC charger plugged in)The LED light wich confirms the charger is in is working, my battery indicator say’s it’s plugged in and charging.
What have you done to try and fix the problem?:
1. I have tried to start without battery and AC charger plugged, that did NOT work.
2. I have tried another identical charger, that did NOT work.
3.I have opened the notebook up and check the wiring down to the mainboard, it appears to be perfect.
4. i have opened up the area where u plug ur charger in the notebook, again it looks flawless.
5.I have updated the powermanagement tool, without any changes.
6. I have flashed BIOS, no changes.
7.I have booted a LINUX CD too see if it was any software issue, same problem appears then.
As far as i can see i have done almost everything i can, im just hoping there is someone out there who had the same problem and have been able to fix it =).
The obvious problem is a solder or something like that on the mainboard wich has malfunctioned. Wich again forces me to get a service on it, wich sucks. Unfortunaly i have little experience with disasemblying notebooks, im always been a much more fan of stationary ones.
But if one of you guys/girls convince me that its actually a mainboard error and i can’t get a service within a reasonable amount of cash im gonna give it a go and try to solder/fix it myself.
Sorry for wall of text, and hopefully some of u got a proper answer for me =)
July 22nd, 2010 at 7:32 am
I have two Dell D510 laptops that run fine on a charged battery, but neither will charge the battery or operate with the a/c adapter. However, whenever an external monitor is connected, the a/c adapter works fine for both running the laptop and charging the battery. The monitor does not even have to be turned on. Any ideas? Thanks.