C90S Battery Lifetime?

Hi, I'm an owner of a C90S that I bought nearly 2 years ago.

There are a few things that I'd like to know, specifically about the kind of batteries that come from these notebooks.

As early as little over a year ago, my battery seemed to have some trouble charging. When I'd run certain applications, the battery would still drain. As the months went by, I noticed that the battery couldn't keep a charge unplugged and not turned on.

Finally, last week, the battery simply stopped holding any charge at all, plugged in or otherwise. I turned it on and noticed that the charge guage just kept getting lower and lower until it reached zero. I turned it off, and the charging light was still on of course. I heard this weird low pitched noise coming from the C90S. I tried turning it on and it'd get to the Windows startup screen before the notebook's screen simply turned off and shutdown instantly. At the time, the charge light was still on, so I waited and tried a few more times until the charge light simply turned off and the low pitched sound stopped altogether.

After searching the forums a little bit for similar problems, its pretty clear that its a battery problem. The battery was on its way out for some time, and it looks like I was lucky to even get that far on the battery when the charge started to go.

I already ordered a new battery, but I'd like to know are there any specific ways to prolong a battery's total lifetime? Do batteries really die as early as 1-2 years? I remember reading some time ago when I was doing research for the notebook that a lot of buyers of these kinds of notebooks would always buy an extra battery or two? I didn't really know why, but is this kind of scenario the reason?

This is technically the first notebook I've bought for myself so I'd like to know a good solid way to maintain these kinds of things in the future.

Musing: My friend told me once that some people would take batteries and simply put in more cells to replace and prolong their battery life. Is that something possible for something like the C90?

 

Batteries usually last anywhere from 1 year to 3 years depending on how you use them. The basic tips for prolonging battery life is to calibrate it once every so often and to discharge them to 30-40% before recharging.

It's also very unlikely that you can add additional battery cells to your existing C90 battery.

Also check out the Battery guide for more battery maintenance info.

 

Bumping my thread due to a new problem involving power, and somewhat the battery.

I ordered a new battery and it came in, but, I found a different problem when I tried to use my C90.

The old battery I had technically isn't completely dead yet. It's on it's way out, but there is another problem with the adapter meeting the motherboard. With the ACE door in, for some reason, the power jack doesn't completely meet with the motherboard, thus, there is an inherent problem of no power getting to the motherboard, and thus not charging the battery.

I noticed the problem after I tried to use the new battery and the battery simply would not charge. The battery was completely new, never been used, so I knew the problem was not the battery. I took out the ACE door and checked the RAM and CPU and everything to make sure nothing was fried. I didn't see anything, so I did a routine plug-and-unplug of the RAM, etc... I put the ACE door back , plugged in the power, and still no dice, no charging light, nothing.

Something hit me then that I didn't realize until then. If everything was in working order, then the C90 should have turned on if it was plugged in even with a dead battery. That then possibly meant that the C90 simply wasn't getting any power at all.

Then I got the crazy idea to take out the ACE door completely, took out the battery, and simply plugged the power jack directly to the motherboard. My intuition was correct and when I pressed the power button, the C90 turned on. Indeed, the problem was that somehow with the ACE door. The door was either blocking power, or preventing the jack from physically touching the motherboard.

How could this happen? The C90 was working fine for the past two years, and suddenly the ACE door is blocking power? Would heat be a factor that somehow melted and/or warped the door so that the jack wouldn't meet? The door looks pristine. I'm completely perplexed.

Has there been anyone with the same problem? Should I modify the ACE door (read: cut out the part where the jack goes in and allow for direct contact?)?

There's probably suggestions in some FAQ out there but I can't use the search function for some reason.

 

Being a fellow owner of a C90S I don't see how modifying the door will help. The battery is completely separate and simply snaps in and out of the chassis without needing to touch the door. One only needs to open the door to swap out the other hardware ie ram,cpu, gpu etc.

Maybe the battery is simply faulty. You should take advantage of whatever returns policy you have to get it replaced asap. Good luck

 

Sorry for not being clearer.

What I meant to say is that the battery isn't the problem. The battery is actually charging like it should. But somehow, if the CPU door is snapped in, the metal jack coming from the AC adapter doesn't meet with the internal workings of the motherboard. In other words, if the plastic door is snapped in, the laptop doesn't charge because no power in reaching the motherboard, thus not charging the battery.

http://estore.asus.com/shop/item.asp?itemid=4094&catid=568

This thingy. If this thingy is in, the laptop doesn't get any power. I think I wrongly called it an ACE door.

 

I had the same problem. The stock adapter has a weird right angle shape to it and I guess over time there was just some flexing that happened. So I went ahead and bought a new adapter and that did the trick.

 

Maybe it needs a couple of solder points between the power socket and the motherboard? If the tension caused by the CPU door causes power contact to be lost...

 

Ah I see. Now I realise you were talking about where the power jack goes in. Yeah I can understand your problem. The right angled nature of it does put extra stress on the socket, I know mine has loosened slightly over the years. I think EBE's advice could be the way forward to fix the problem.

Good luck