emekadavid said:
i bought a compaq presario cq56 from a vendor who came to the country from America. less than one month after, if I charge the battery to 100%, on removing the power plug, the battery falls dead within 15-20 mins and my linux machine just dies instantly without even hibernating. Sometimes, the system complains on boot up that battery is faulty, sometimes it does not. sometimes, the linux machines complains of a tcs?? failure, sometimes it doesn't. I wonder if there is any issue yet with that system as to power, or the vendor hoodwinked me?
thanks
The problem could be with the battery, or with the charging circuit
on the motherboard. Or even the power adapter you use to power the laptop.
The vendor probably knew the battery life was not acceptable.
It is OK to sell a used laptop with a bad battery, as long
as you tell the buyer there will be an extra expense to buy
a new main battery.
Lithium batteries don't last forever, and on a used laptop
you would probably predict the need for a new battery.
If the external adapter is original equipment (not a replacement),
then the voltage output of that is probably the correct level.
This is a liability with laptops. And why sometimes, you
end up "running them off the cord" while using them.
I run my laptop with the main battery removed, and powered
off the mains, whenever that is convenient, rather than
use the battery. I try not to leave my battery at 100%
charge, to extend its lifetime. (Store it at 70% charge.)
But eventually, after three or four years, the battery capacity
is going to start dropping. Eventually it will behave like yours
does - short discharge time, shoulder of discharge
curve is so abrupt, a clean shutdown is not possible.
Then the fun part, is finding a vendor online you can
trust, to sell you a decent after-market replacement.
Paul
