I have a Toshiba M115-S3154 laptop and it’s about a year and a half old. For a while, I never turned my laptop off and always left it charging so the battery only lasts max 5 minutes now when the laptop is unplugged. Today, I unplugged it from the wall and my laptop immediately turned off. It wouldn’t turn back on until I plugged it back into the wall outlet. Is there any way to fix this myself? Or, do I have to bring it in to get it looked at? I would appreciate any sort of help!

First of all, try updating the laptop BIOS to the latest version, at this time it’s version 1.50 released on 03-15-2007.
I just checked the BIOS change history for your laptop and in the latest version there is this fix:
Quote: “The pre-charge current was changed from 128mA to 256mA to correct rare occurrences of battery recharge failures.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Once battery in my laptop is partially discharged and connected to the AC Power, it starts charging and then somewhere down the line, the laptop suspends with the ‘battery low’ pop up. When I bring it out of suspension, it shows the battery completely depleted, for whatever reason. Then, the second I power down, the battery starts charging. This isn’t normal behavior. If anyone can shower some light on this, I’d be really really grateful.

I think your laptop may have a problem with the DC power connector (AKA power jack). Even though the AC adapter is plugged, the laptop runs on the battery power. It happens because the power jack is not making good connection with the motherboard. As a result, the motherboard is not getting power from the adapter and runs on the battery power instead. Read the rest of this entry »

I have a Thinkpad T41. Yellow light for battery charging does not go even after switching the laptop off and power jack is disconnected. Battery does not charge at all with power source connected.
Can you please help?

First of all, try reconnection the battery if you haven’t done it already.
The battery plugs directly into the connector attached to the motherboard. If the battery charging light stay on even when the power adapter is unplugged and the laptop is switched off, it’s either bad battery or something is wrong with the motherboard. The only way to find the culprit is testing the laptop with another known good battery.
Also, you can try this. Remove the battery and plug in the power adapter. If the battery charging LED lights up even when the battery is removed, most likely you have a problem with the motherboard.

I have a Toshiba Satellite A70 laptop. Picked it up on eBay without an AC adapter. I tried several adapters rated 19v as required but shy on the required amperage. I was using a 450watt one. I noticed it would charge the battery OK when the laptop was off but once in windows it would not charge the battery. I read some threads above that pointed to anything from a bad motherboard, voltage regulator power supply or battery problem. Long story short, I bought the proper AC adapter for it, 19v 6.3amps and voila, problem fixed. It now charges in Windows. So if anyone has the same problem, that is how you fix it. Spend the money and get the right adapter for your laptop. Hope this helps someone.

This is very important to choose the right AC adapter for your laptop. The output voltage MUST be exactly the same. If your laptop requires 18.5V you must use 18.5V adapter. The amperage should be the same or higher. If the laptop requires 4.74A adapter, you’ll have to find an adapter witch provides 4.74A or MORE.

I’ve been longing for an answer for my Compaq NX9020 laptop’s battery problem.
Basically, last battery did not work so I bought a new one from HP store. I got it yesterday. It seemed fine. However, from this morning, problems came: while using AC adapter alone or battery alone, laptop works. However while using them together, laptop LED lights blinks and the power meter for battery drops down immediately to 0% critical level, whereas the battery LED indicator says it’s full. I tried to unplug the AC adaptor while it went down to 0%, then the power meter for the battery came back to normal 85%.

I think there could be a few different reasons why it happens:
1. It might be an issue with the BIOS. Make sure the laptop has the latest version of BIOS installed, update it if needed.
2. It might be a software related issue. If you have some kind of Compaq power management utility installed try uninstalling it and use Windows power management utility instead. Also I would try reinstalling the operating system if upgrading the BIOS or removing the power management utility does not help.
3. If you still experience the same problem even after upgrading the BIOS and reinstalling Windows, most likely you have a problem with the motherboard. Apparently the charging circuit is not working properly. I assume it’s not a problem with the battery because you just purchased a new one. You’ll have to replace the motherboard in this case.

I’ve weird problem with my battery (Acer Aspire 5562WXMi).
When I use only on battery, from 100% to about 40% the battery discharging normally (last about 1 hour) then suddenly from 40% it drop directly to 2%.
When I plug the AC cord, it won’t directly charge (the charge LED is still not on). After 10 to 20 minutes it then starts to charge the battery (the indicator say that it can be charged to 100%).
If I turn-off the laptop and then charge the battery, it won’t also directly charge but the delay is much shorter (maybe just about 1-2 minutes).
Is this the sign of a bad battery (when hot it can’t be charged?) or maybe a bad AC adapter (not enough power to charge the battery when the laptop is turned on?)
Note that this symptom is always repeating when I use the laptop.

From the first part of your complaint description I can see that you have a bad battery. I’ve seen this battery related problem many times before. The percentage might vary, but the process of discharging is the same – the battery discharges fine until some point and then the remaining charge suddenly drops to the minimum. You’ll have to replace the battery.
I’m not sure about the second part. Probably it’s a battery related problem too. Just in case check if there is a newer version of BIOS available for your laptop. If you find one, upgrade the BIOS.

I have a Toshiba Satellite P35-6292. Recently the power adapter has not been charging the battery when the computer is powered on. It will charge it when it is off though. Strangely when I turn on the computer the battery light will go off (indicating in Toshibas that the system is running on battery power only) while the AC power light will remain on. After windows boots up completely the icon signifies it charging for a brief 5 seconds and then reverts back to battery power only. The computer will boot normally with just the battery in. However, when I try just AC adapter with no battery in, the laptop will boot up until the black screen right before the Windows logo normally shows up. Then it will shut off completely. Also note that with just the AC power in I can actually leave the computer on indefinitely with no battery only while I’m in the systems bios. As soon as I try to start windows it will shut off before the logo. I have also tried another Toshiba power adapter but not a different battery. It almost seems like windows is involved with the problem. Any ideas?

Will it make any difference if you boot the laptop into safe mode? May be Windows power management software is screwed up.
Here’s another test. You can boot the laptop from a live Linux CD. I usually use Knoppix CD. If you start the laptop from this CD, it will boot into a Windows-like environment. It loads Linux OS directly from the CD bypassing the hard drive. It’s a good test to find out if you have a software related problem. If the laptop still switches to the battery with the AC adapter plugged, then it’s not software related problem.
You can also reinstall the operating system form the recovery DVD, it will eliminate any software related issues too.
Make sure you the laptop has the latest version of BIOS. Upgrade the BIOS if needed.
The problem also could be related to the power jack. You’ll find more information about the power jack issues here.

I’m almost positive I need new battery, but thought I would ask before spending $100. I have a Toshiba A15-1292. When I unplug the power it will run off the battery, the battery icon says it is 100% charged and I have 2+ hrs remaining, but within a few minutes I get the “critical battery level” message and it will die. When I plug it back into AC power the battery charge light comes on (and will remain on for over a hour), but I will have the same problem with it dying as soon as it is unplugged. Do I need a new battery?

Yep, it looks like you have a bad battery. I’ve seen this battery problem many times before. Here are behaviors typical for a dying laptop battery:
1. The battery charges normally (according to the battery icon) but as soon as you unplug the laptop, it dies almost momentarily.
2. The battery charges normally. When you unplug the laptop, it discharges normally until some point and after that point starts discharging very fast. For example it might take 10-15 minutes to discharge from 100% to 80% and then it discharges from 80% to 0 for 2-3 minutes.

Laptop switching to battery power while turned on with AC adaptor
Model: Toshiba Satellite A70-TS100E
I was wondering if you could help me in identifying the cause of this problem.
While turned on, the laptop will switch to battery power even if connected with the AC adaptor (sometimes during boot-up, or after a while) until the battery drains out, he then goes to hibernation (the battery light is off). If no battery in the laptop, it will shut down, and the AC light will blink very fast. The battery (li-ion) will only charge up to 10%, where it then jumps right up to 100%, and will discharge from 100% to 90% then jump to 0%, go to hibernation, and fails to complete the process, shutting down. The adaptor makes a small “camera flash charging” sound, stabilizing at 19v. When charging, it repeatedly makes the “charging sound” Faulty AC adaptor? Or Faulty battery? Or Both?

I think you might have a few different problems at the same time.
First problem: the laptop switches to battery power even with connected AC adapter. Most likely you have a faulty power jack. It’s either broken or loose. It’s a known issue with Satellite A70/A75 laptops and you can fix it by replacing/resoldering the power jack or relocating it outside laptop case.
It also could be a problem with the power cord. Find a multimeter and check the AC adapter. See if the power cuts off when you jiggle the power cord. If it does, replace the adapter.
Second problem: the battery will discharge from 100% to 90% and then jump to 0%. It sounds like a bad battery.

I have a problem with a Toshiba laptop model M55-S325. When I plug the power cord while the laptop is turned on it starts to charge and the AC power LED turns on as well as the charging LED. Then after a few seconds the charging LED turns off and the battery stops charging but the AC power LED stills on. If I unplug the power cord and plug it again it happens again.
I also noticed that this happens only while I’m in Windows. If I charge my laptop turned off it charges normal. Also during the boot and loading of Windows the charging is normal. I checked the power jack and I don’t thing the problem is there. I move the power cord while connected to check for failures in both the jack and the cable and in both cases the laptop turn off and on but nothing happened, everything is the same. What do you think the problem might be? Please help.

Can the laptop run just on the battery power, when the AC adapter is unplugged?
The problem with your laptops is very similar to a battery charging problem with some Toshiba Satellite A105 laptops. Almost the same symptoms. In case of Satellite A105 the problem could be resolved by upgrading the BIOS version. I think it might work for your laptop too. Go to Toshiba tech support website and download the latest BIOS for your model. It looks like at this moment the latest version is v2.10
You mentioned that the charging problem occurs only in Windows. I think it might be somehow related to Toshiba Power Saver software. Try to reinstall the power saver.
If upgrading the BIOS version and reinstalling the power saver software will not help, you might have a hardware problem. In Satellite M55 the battery connects directly to the system board. So, it might be either the battery failure or the system board failure. The best way to test it is finding a spare battery and test the laptop with the new battery installed.