Why won’t my battery charge?
QFollowing a Windows update, I noticed a warning message that said my laptop was plugged in but not charging. After a week, the battery level has fallen to 90 per cent. I contacted the manufacturer but the company wanted to charge me for support! The machine is about 18 months old, and gets only personal use. Is my battery broken? Jeanne Pike
AAll rechargeable batteries have a limited life, which is typically somewhere between 500 to 1,000 charge-discharge cycles. However, batteries don’t often die suddenly: rather, over time their ability to hold a charge diminishes. Even so, a deteriorating laptop battery will still charge and show ‘100%’ when it’s finished charging, but that ‘100%’ won’t last as long as it used to.
In this case we think the battery driver has hit a problem, or been corrupted. In the first instance, power down the laptop and then remove the battery. Typically, this will involve releasing one or more sprung clips on the machine’s underside. If you’re not sure, check the machine’s manual on the manufacturer’s website. Also disconnect the mains power cable for a few seconds before reconnecting. Now, without reattaching the battery, fire up the laptop on mains power alone and allow Windows to fully boot. Then, shut down Windows as normal and, when the laptop powers off, reattach the battery and the mains power cord and relaunch Windows.
Check the battery icon in the taskbar’s notification area to see if the charge level is rising. If not, the next step is to uninstall the battery drivers. This will cause Windows to download and install the latest versions — fixing compatibility or corruption problems.
Begin by following the same procedure as above to start the laptop on mains power alone, without the battery attached, allowing Windows to boot fully. Next, launch Device Manager, by pressing Windows key+r, typing devmgmt.msc and pressing Enter. Click the right-facing arrow to expand the Battery section and then right-click the ‘Microsoft AC Adapter’ entry and choose ‘Uninstall device’ (see screenshot), and then confirm by clicking Uninstall. Do the same with the entry labelled ‘Microsoft ACPICompliant Control Method Battery’ (see screenshot), and any entries labelled with ‘ACPI’ and ‘battery’.
Next, shut down Windows once more and wait for the laptop to fully power down. Disconnect the mainspower cable, reattach the battery, then pop the mains cable back in. Now power up the laptop and allow Windows to launch. After a few moments the battery driver should reinstall automatically.
The battery should now be charging as normal. However, you might want to go through a calibration procedure so Windows gets a better measure of your battery’s condition. Remove the mains power, use the laptop until the battery’s juice runs out, then charge to 100 per cent. Repeat this several times, allowing the battery to cool for an hour or two between each discharge.