Dead Battery?

[aribenig]

Hi!

All of a sudden, my computer started to die when I unplugged it. No notification that the battery status was poor was highlighted. Nevertheless, the battery seems in charging status when the computer is on but the level doesn't raise from 47%.

I suspect the battery being dead. Is my guess correct?

If so, which battery is recommended to be purchased for a Vaio VPCSB?

Thanks in advance.

Arianna

[rich912]

Hi Arianna,

It would seem that your battery has failed but have you checked battery health in Vaio Control Centre > Power Management?

I believe your model has the VGP-BPS24 battery and, as we have had so many reports of incompatibility with replacement batteries, it is recommended that you purchase direct from Sony.

http://www.sony.co.uk/product/vaio-batteries/vgp-bps24/compatible-products#tab

Rich

[aribenig]

Hi!

If I go in the Power Management it states that the battery status is Good. (!?)

Thanks for the link to the compatible battery.

Arianna

[rich912]

Hi Arianna,

I’m not sure how accurate the status check is but would expect it to report ‘excellent’, especially for a machine that is probably less than two years old.

This is probably a long shot but if possible call in to your local Sony Centre and see whether they have a battery that you could test in your machine.

The fact that the battery would appear to be charging but stops at 47% would tend to point to a battery problem unless you have enabled the battery care function to a low max of charge (under the advanced settings). Even 47% charge should run the notebook for at least 30 minutes under full load.

Rich

[aribenig]

Hi,

thank you for your reply. The computer is indeed less than 2 years old. It started to report good about 6 months ago for what concerns the battery.

I agree that with about 50% of the battery I should be able to run something. The weird thing is that I could run it for one hour and something without being connected until yesterday it suddenly stopped to work.

I will try to see if I can find a near Sony Centre.

Thank you in the meanwhile

Arianna

[aribenig]

More updates.

I searched a lot around the net and got worried.

I surely exclude that the problem might be related to the charger (since it works with the charger connected), so the problem might be:

1) dead battery

2) motherboard failure.

While I still keep hoping for the first, I have done some experiment.

I have downloaded an third party battery check software (Battery Care), which stated that the battery was at 47%, charging.

however, when looking at the detailed information it stated that the charging rate was of 0 W and that the current capacity was 0 mWh.

Ok - I thought that it means that the battery is dead and that the 47% is just a "memory" of the battery.

Still, I found strange that the battery died from one day to another and that Vaio states that the state of it is good.

I did hence an hard reset. Removed the battery and charger, pressed start up for 20 seconds. Connected everything again and started.

Check the status on Battery Care and still, charging rate 0W, currente capacity 0mWh. Strangely enough though, both Windows and Battery Care are reporting that the battery is charging and I can see its value increment.

After reaching 76% it stopped again.

I haven't yet tried to remove the charger (don't want to make the computer die again) or to start it up when the charger is disconnected (I will try later on), but something is fishy and I'd like to know the following:

1) Would the warranty cover such problems? I don't think it covers a battery failure, isn't it?

2) which is the lenght of the warranty? as far as I have understood, laptopts sold after April 2011 (mine is from November 2011) with Win 7 have a 2 years old warranty

3) Is there a way to detect if the problem is the battery or the motherboard without requiring me to buy another battery just now or send the computer to repair to anyone? (yes, of course, I could ask somebody else that has the same laptop but that is not exactly easy...)

Thanks in advance

[rich912]

Hi Arianna,

It is odd that a reset increased the reported level of charge but the only way to check whether the battery is in fact holding that charge is to remove the power adaptor – as long as all work is backed up there is little chance of damage.

I know from experience that a battery can fail without any notice, sometimes just refusing to recognise the battery other times not holding charge although reported to be charging, and as you have noticed a health deterioration over a few months I would suspect this to be the cause of the trouble rather than a motherboard problem.

The warranty, be it 1 or 2 years, will not cover the battery as it is classed as a consumable and is only covered for, I believe, 6 months.

I’m not aware of any way, without sophisticated equipment, of checking the battery.

The only other thing I can suggest is to try pressing the battery off button on the underside of the notebook (when shut down) but as you have already tried removing and replacing the battery I doubt that this will make any difference. See page 17 of the following user manual for location.

ftp://ftp.vaio-link.com/pub/manuals/Notebooks/VPCSB/SB_H_EN.pdf

Rich

[aribenig]

This is incredibly odd!

I turned off the laptop. Disconnect the charger and tried to start up the pc.

It actually works.

At start up, the battery level displays 76% and it states that it will last for 1 h.

I wonder if that is correct or not...

Any explanation behind this mistery/misery? :

[rich912]

Hi Arianne,

I can only assume that a reset did the trick. Of course only time will tell....

Rich