Battery failure because of power fluctuation ?

Hi everybody. This question regards my laptop battery.

Although it's got nothing to do with the actual problem, I own a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo L6820 ... it's a rather old notebook, but it still does its job well.

Some time ago I was working on my laptop [with the power adapter plugged in, and the battery charging] when all of a sudden the electricity in my apartment went off and on again in a matter of seconds. Since then, I have had the following problem: the battery has stopped working. More exactly, I cannot power my laptop on without the power adapter. At first the battery was still in the laptop [at some point I took it out], but my laptop was acting like it had no battery.

From my point of view, It could be the battery itself or the circuits that transfer power from the battery to the mainboard. I'm quite good with computers, but unfortunately I'm lost when it comes to electronic circuits & stuff. I opened the laptop, and had a good look at the part of the mainboard where the battery went in. Everything looks great ... no sign of any damage whatsoever.

I'm thinking of buying a new battery for the laptop, but I'm afraid that I might spend ~100eur for nothing if the battery is not the problem. What do you guys think? Any suggestions are more than welcome.

Thanks.

 

They are smart batteries that have internal circuits.This might have damaged them.Anyway there are no fixes that I am aware of apart from opening the battery...

 

Old batteries like NiCd and MiMh will short out with a power surge like a lightning strike. A lithium Ion battery will vent when abused and will have a chemical smell. Lithium batteries are very dangerous and have fuses built in to prevent them from getting too much abuse. I don't recomend taking them apart all of them have caustic chemicals that leak out and you are better off not handling.

 

Your AC brick outputs 19VDC to charge battery and run laptop. Do you have a meter to check this? Your battery should be anywhere from 11-15VDC, read value off the battery case. Does the battery have a built in charge indicator? Do you have access to a spare battery; you may look for a spare in C.C., Worst Buy or Chump USA for testing purpose, and return privileges. (Or the European equivalent )

If battery and AC brick check out, you may be right about the power switching relay inside the notebook. For an old notebook it may be more cost effective to run off a battery UPS if it’s a circuit board problem.

 

Were you plugged into a surge protector?

 

Hi.

I don't have the battery with me right now, so I don't have any means of testing it [it doesn't have a power indicator] ... even if it were here, I would definitely not open it Unfortunately looking for a 'test' battery is quite difficult right now, but I was wondering if you guys know of a way to check this on the mainboard [I already had a good look].

Unfortunately I was *not* plugged in a surge protector.

Thanks guys ... keep'em comming

[EDIT] I forgot to mention that the power adapter works perfectly ... and so does the rest of the notebook, for that matter ... the problem is just the battery [or the circuit].

 

You still need to check your AC/DC adapter, your laptop may run fine at 9-12VDC but will not kick in the charge circuit depending on how sophisticated the charging logic circuit was set up.

You can find a cheapo meter for about $10-15 for decent AC/DC funtions at a RS store.

 

No surge protector. Ouch. It could have damaged a number of things, but what hydra said makes sense.

At least the notebook still runs on AC power . And get yourself a surge protector!

 

True. What hydra says does make perfect sense [10x, I wasn't thinking about the lower voltage thing]. I can get a meter from one of my friends without any trouble, so it's the first thing I'll do.

It's on surge protector now [it's been so for quite a while], so don't worry ... I'll post the voltages after I check them ... 10x.

 

The AC brick works perfectly ... I've just checked it and it outputs exactly 20V, which it's supposed to output. So apparently it's ok.

So do you guys think that I should risk buying a battery, or further check the circuitry?

 

Considering the age of the notebook, I would do as much testing as possible before outlaying any money on it. Even if the battery were damaged, I personally would consider a UPS for it and just run it on AC power until I replaced the notebook with a newer one. At that point, I'd have a transferrable UPS for the new system, rather than a useless battery.