Dell E6400 battery says '20% ...charging' but never charges

After nearly a day of charging, it still reads the same in the status bar: 20%... charging. the little battery icon is not moving.

is there anything i can do to fix this short of buying a new mother board, taking apart the laptop?

 

Unless that battery is a recent purchase then most likely you need a new battery. BatteryInfoView is good for showing more details of the battery status. You will be lucky to get more than about 3 years useful life out of a battery so by now an E6400 should be on its 3rd battery.

However, also check that you don't have some user-defined charging rules in Dell Power Manager (but I don't think it will allow a Stop Charging setting below about 50%. The other thing to try is a recalibration by leaving the computer running on battery and open at the BIOS screen until the battery goes dead. Windows automatically shuts down / hibernates with some charge remaining which means that the battery chip can gradually lose sight of the absolute empty. Then put it back on charge. The battery might return to useful life but most likely it won't hold much charge.

John

 

thank you for your reply. I got the laptop on ebay second hand so ... it's gotta be the battery. that battery info app looks interesting too... many thanks.