Laptop won't charge

eth0_

Hi, i've had a Fujitsu Siemens laptop since March and it's never given me a bit of trouble until about 10 days ago when the battery wouldn't charge. The battery icon doesn't even show on the little lcd screen on the laptop, and on windows power management it says 'Total battery power remaining: 0%'.

Luckily it's running fine off ac power. I tried all the troubleshooting in my manual and having had no joy called FS. Got through to a guy who didn't do any troubleshooting with me, and then said "ok, i'll get a new battery posted out to you today". I double checked he was sending me a battery as I have a RTB warranty, again he said one would be sent out. I even asked him what to do with the dodgy battery and he said there'd be instructions with the new battery of where to send it for disposal.

No problem, right? About 3 days later, a HUGE box arrives by courier from Northern Ireland. Big box for a battery, I thought. I open the box, and all that is inside, is one measly sheet of bubble wrap. Nothing else.

So I ring FJ the next day and get through to someone called Dympna, who said 'oh you have to send your laptop to Belfast for repair'. I stated that the guy I spoke to said he would send A NEW BATTERY. She said she was the only one there on a Saturday (extremely unprofessional thing to say but however..), but promised to email one of the technicians and would ring me first thing monday and let me know what was happening.

I wasn't particularly happy at this as she was telling me something entirely different....but I waited. And waited. On Tuesday morning I rang, and surprise got straight through to Dympna again! Who said 'Oh....I haven't heard anything back...'. She promised to chase it up and call me back THAT DAY.

No call so far!!!

Not only is it absolutely disgraceful that a company promises a battery and then, with no note of explanation, mails me a huge box with, to be honest, **** packaging to send my laptop back in ....There is no way i'm putting a 2 grand pc into it for a start, and also i'm doing a degree and can't be without my PC for long.

THen, there's the fact that their tech support team are ABYSMALLY trained. NO troubleshooting was done at all.


I'm extremely pissed off at Fujitsu-Siemens Before now I would have had no hesitation in recommending them, but it just goes to show, tech support counts for a LOT when it comes to overall customer satisfaction!

Ok the jist of this is, does anyone know how laptops work re charging? Is it more likely the charging mechanism has died in the laptop rather than there being a problem with the battery? I mean the battery wasn't holding it's charge as well as it used to, but this was a very sudden thing when it suddenly refused to charge.

Villain

Hi well firstly I'm sure someone will have all the technical info here.

But I came across a problem something the same last year and dell sent me out a new adapter, worked fine then.

Dont suppose you know some one with a similar adapter most laptops are the same but make sure and check the voltage.

At least that way you rule out one thing.

Hope thats some help.

eth0_

Yeah I know someone with a large amount of the same model, might try that actually. Altho surely if the charging cable thing was broken, it wouldn't even power up?

Villain

Originally posted by eth0_
Yeah I know someone with a large amount of the same model, might try that actually. Altho surely if the charging cable thing was broken, it wouldn't even power up?

You'd think so probably not the problem but at least you'l be able to rule it out for good.

Why not take a battery out and try it as well then

Saruman

Look in your manual for a learning cycle.. batteries need to be trained how to charge.. Sometimes there is an option in the bios.. sometimes a little Dos Util you run and it takes about 12 hours.. other times its a manual thing where you charge to max, run on battery only and then repeat the procedure...

Chances are though your battery is just arsed... only other thing might be the connectors on the chassis not making contact.
No reason they cant sent a new battery.. as for their Tech support.. its probably not even them you are through to.. probably a 3rd party Outsource company. Dell are the only ones i know for sure have their own Tech support still... probably others but most i know are run by other companies so they are not as good as the manufacturers tech support would have been! Why you ask? Its cheaper!!

Oh and if you know someone who has these laptops? Try another battery to be sure... and then tell the tech muppets you only need the battery!!

sutty

Originally posted by eth0_
I double checked he was sending me a battery as I have a RTB warranty, again he said one would be sent out. I even asked him what to do with the dodgy battery and he said there'd be instructions with the new battery of where to send it for disposal.

RTB = Return To Base = you send it back to the manufacture to get it repaired for *anything*

IBM work on the same prcess for home users. When I got my laptop the system board was blowen in it. Even though I work for one of IBM's oldist suppliers and I am a Tech for them (meaning when I open a laptop up in work I dont void the warrantee.) I had to send it into them to be fixed (even though over the phone I was told they would send a system board out to me). Anyway, when I got it back they had distroyed the CMOS battery (pulled the wired out and not put them in the right way around. They also discharged it. When I rang IBM back about it, they said send it in again.... I hung up the phone. I'll get one through work. The morel of the story is that. If you have a RTB warrantee you need to send it back.

There are lots of things that could be wrong with it. the AC card could be damaged so that its not sending/reciving power from the battery, The battery could be faulty, the battery may not have been charged right First time thus causing this futher down the road. As for the teaching battery to charge again, this is right. On some older laptops this was done by charging the battery to as much as it would go and then letting it run out. you'd do this 3 times and it would sometimes work(this was done if the battery couldn't hold a charge for this full amount of time). But seening as you cant get yours to charge at all. I'd go to the site and see if you cant just buy the battery new or.. see if you can just send the battery back to them for testing (seeing as it seams to be faulty)

Saruman

Depends on the manufacturer.. Gateway did not need you to send it back... if they were happy you could fit it then they sent the parts.. even boards and cpu's (for laptops im talking about!)

Xterminator

Originally posted by sutty
RTB = Return To Base = you send it back to the manufacture to get it repaired for *anything*

If you have a RTB warrantee you need to send it back.

Not true.

Often the RTB warantee is for certain compenents etc . . in the fine print.
Also if yoiu have a defective art, in thios case a battery, the laptop still works, and can be used. if he has to send in the whole thing, he is without a machine for x days .. where idf the part is mailed out, and tech support talk him through replacing the part, (and theres not much to taking out a bleedin battery ) then he minimises the inconvienience.
As a former tech support of a multinational, i talked lay people through replacing internal modems, video caqrds, Hdd'd processors memory etc in there pc's. (often they had never seen the inside of a computer before).

X

sutty

aye, true, but in this case it looks as though it is a full RTB warrantee. but as I said, you should see if you can just send the battery back for testing. If its found faulty then they can send you out a new one. As for the talking people through things. Alot of places stoped doing this as a lot of people where scaming them and getting extra parts and what not (Dell I know used to, anyone know if they still do, As far as I know they send out an engineer) anyway back to the point at hand. If you clame you run a small bussnees from the laptop and cant be with out it, then they may go easy and just let you send in the battery. only problem is that if they find out its not the battery then your going to have to send it in.

milltown

Why not give Dympna a bell and ask her if you can just send them the battery? You can still use your computer on AC, they can test the battery and if it is ok maybe then send them the whole shooting match.