Battery Not Charging (Cyclical)

stiofan85

Hi Guys,

Wondering if anyone can help me on this:

My Samsung Q430 laptop's battery started doing this weird thing a while ago and I'm sick of it! When plugged in, the battery will charge for approx 3 seconds, then stop charging for 3 seconds, then start charging again. It will charge very very slowly in this manner. I can hear the CPU fan spinning up and down during this time, and if I have different brightness settings for plugged in/running on batteries, the screen flicks between high brightness and the lower setting.

To fix this I have tried the following:

• Discharged original battery completely - no dice
• Bought replacement battery - no dice
• Checked DC jack on the adaptor with Voltmeter - no dice, giving a steady 19.3v
• Ran "Battery Calibration" from Bios - no dice
• Uninstalled Windows Battery driver - no dice
• Tried running on AC alone - laptop works fine without the battery plugged in.
• Charged battery with laptop turned off - it charges to 100% and the laptop functions perfectly. Unplug it at any point and you're back to the cyclical charging/not-charging cycle.
• Samsung loads "Chargeable USB" and "Battery Life Extender" - I have uninstalled both of these products. - no dice.

So from all of this I can deduce that the batteries I have are fine. The charger is fine. Power is going from the adaptor to the laptop fine, and it is also getting to the battery, just in a cyclical way.

At this point I'm wondering if re-installing windows is the way to go? Or maybe stick Ubuntu on a usb key and see if the same behaviour occurs in Ubuntu?

Any other advice would be appreciated!

Thanks,

Stephen

stiofan85

Update:

I tried a Ubuntu bootable disc and the same happened.

I noticed the cyclical behaviour happens even in the Bios, so it's not Windows related.

I pulled out the battery and booted up the laptop then checked the pins where the battery connects with a voltmeter. The battery is rated at 11.1v, but the pins are only putting out about 2.6v (although consistently).

Does this indicate I have a hardware problem?

Fysh

Sounds like hardware alright - based on your findings there's an issue of some sort with power regulation at the battery interface.

It would be worth checking if there are any firmware updates available, and whether an issue like this is listed on the fixes provided by the updates. Barring that, it sounds like you're looking at tech support (if it's in warranty) or fiddly hardware replacement (if it's not).

bellaminnie

Im trying to make a new Thread but I cant find the the icon for it. The question i want answered is below

Can anyone help me im trying to download this driver. Network Controller. Im trying to get my wifi and Bluetooth to work but i havnt had any luck finding the driver
My Samsung Labtop model number is RV510

RossieMan

http://www.samsung.com/uk/support/model/NP-RV510-A05UK-downloads

try Chipset 1st, then the bluetooth drivers.

bellaminnie

Thank you very much for the answer above I wish i could get a link to make a new Thread then this woulden happen again its very diffcult to find the new thread ive been using thsi web site for a week now

RossieMan

just go back to the section you want to post in, and its here.