Laptop battery losing charge

Hi all,

I just recently bought a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pro laptop but only now I'm noticing that the battery in the laptop seems to lose charge when it's sitting in the machine, even though the machine is off.

So, if I have a fully charged battery and I leave it in the laptop (which is powered off), the next day about 10% of the power in the battery will have disappeared.

This can't be normal, can it?

If i remove the battery from the laptop, it holds its charge, so I could do that but it would be nice to be able to leave it there, plugged in.

Any ideas on this?
Thanks

kwalsh000

Well,with all laptops it is normal to take the battery out when the laptop is connected to the mains, even if its not on. I had an amilo D and did the same as you and i definatly noticed a problem with the batter. Then again with my new amilo i left the battery out as its always on mains and now the battery wont work at all with the laptop. But check fujitsu website, i remember seeing something about certain models having battery problems and they were doing an exchange on them. Best way is to take out battery while on charge. Hope this helps

kwalsh000

kwalsh000 wrote:

Well,with all laptops it is normal to take the battery out when the laptop is connected to the mains, even if its not on. I had an amilo D and did the same as you and i definatly noticed a problem with the batter. Then again with my new amilo i left the battery out as its always on mains and now the battery wont work at all with the laptop. But check fujitsu website, i remember seeing something about certain models having battery problems and they were doing an exchange on them. Best way is to take out battery while on charge. Hope this helps

Hey cheers, I'll have a look at the site, at least I'm not the only one with problems like that...if it comes to it, I'll take the battery out when fully charged, but if there's a way around that, hopefully that site will help out.

Sleipnir

kwalsh000 wrote:

Well,with all laptops it is normal to take the battery out when the laptop is connected to the mains, even if its not on.

Eh? I've never heard of this. I don't think I have ever taken the battery out of my laptop!

kwalsh000

Not a bother man, hopefully it can be of some help to you.

As for the battery, i never heard of it until i did a bit of research when my last laptop battery went wonky. Im sure someone else with better know how of laptops will chime in soon enough:)

TommyGun

During normal operating conditions your battery should only lose about 1% of its charge each day.

If your battery loses more than that each day there is a problem. If your battery does not lose charge over night when it is not connected to the laptop and the battery lasts normally when AC is not connected then this would lead me to believe that the laptop is draining the charge.

There are lots of capacitors in laptops that take and hold charge. These should not get charged when the system is off. Are you sure that you have the laptop off and not in any standby mode (as this could cause the problem you are seeing).

If this is as you are saying and the battery is fine when not plugged in and the system is off when the battery is discharging overnight, the problem is with the motherboard draining charge from the battery.

Would there anything I could switch off, maybe in the BIOS, to prevent discharge?

Or would there a malfunction in the laptop itself, if it is discharging the battery during the night?

TerrorFirmer

Sleipnir wrote:

Eh? I've never heard of this. I don't think I have ever taken the battery out of my laptop!

Leaving it on the mains with the battery in all the time can drain the battery, much like a mobile phone battery, so it will start taking less and less charge when you do use it on its own battery....

TommyGun

MoonHawk wrote:

Would there anything I could switch off, maybe in the BIOS, to prevent discharge?

Or would there a malfunction in the laptop itself, if it is discharging the battery during the night?

No, this could be an a problem with the MB or could be a design issue, check the Fujitsu wed site and google the problem with your model and see if other people have this problem.

(The only other thing i can think of is to swich off the Wake on Lan setting in the BIOS, but this is a shot in the dark)

I checked their website and they do have a battery replacement programme, but my model isn't listed in the list of affected laptops (v2065) so I might give them a call at the weekend, ask someone directly.

I'll have a look through the BIOS to see if anything is obvious.