Faulty battery or in need of calibration?

Bought a knockoff 9 cell from eBay for my N43, since official Asus ones are only 6 cell, and it's giving me a bit of grief on first contact. Instructions said to deplete it to 3% then charge all the way on first use, so I plugged it into the laptop, booted, and lo and behold it reported 52% charge. Fair enough I thought, I played around with the laptop for some 20 minutes, then I set it down with the antivirus running to help deplete it faster. Which it did, after 15 minutes I checked the computer again to find it completely shut down, I suspect it turned off suddenly at what might've been reported around 40% without getting a chance to go into hibernation. When I plugged it into the mains the battery did indeed report 0%.

I then let it charge all the way up to "green" with the computer off and when I turned it on again it reported 100%, so I unplugged it and left it overnight. But when I powered on this morning on the train it claimed it had only 81% charge left, despite not having been used since the full charge. So either the 100% last night was false, or it somehow lost 20% charge over roughly 10 hours.

So what are the possibilities here? I was fully aware that I could get a lemon when I got it from eBay, but I decided to bite the bullet and give it a try. Right now it's running fine, has 65% left as I'm typing this, and I'm waiting to see if it will deplete all the way or if it will suddenly turn off while it should still have charge. Is it possible that this behaviour is just temporary and a result of having been in transit for roughly a month (shipped from Singapore, holidays, etc.) and that it just needs to be broken in, calibrated, or did my gamble earn me a flat-out dud?

 

Hi,

I wouldn't worry just yet as apparently you need to 'run-in' new batteries to get theie full capacity out of them. Do this by discharging and charging a few times.

The following link has some tips;
Laptop battery tips at laptop-battery.org

HTH

Mark.

 

Thanks for the link. Hopefully you're right and it just needs some breaking in, it did it again today. I used it throughout the day and for the most part, aside from reporting 81% despite supposedly having been fully charged, charge depleted consistently with usage. Until I got on the train back home, and on power-on despite the fact that it should've reported just under 30% it gave me "52%" just like when I first got it, promising another 2:30 hours, and then promptly died after half an hour of High Performance usage.

The BIOS doesn't have a battery calibration feature, so I'll just try a manual one. It's fully depleted now, I'll leave it eight hours plugged in overnight then fully deplete tomorrow in a single session - well, as close as I can assuming it works normally, can only get it to 1% due to critical battery settings - then give it another full charge. Will see if that sorts things out.

 

I am having the same problem with my ASUS STOCK battery.

Problem was that I had frozen my comp, so the only way i could turn it off was to unplug the battery, and since then, I cannot get more 2 hours of battery show up. (before was over 4 hours)

 

Ok, I'm still getting issues here. Just did three full charges and discharges over the weekend and I'm still getting inconsistent charge levels reported: I used it from full charge this morning down to 73% and now I've just turned it back on again to find the battery reporting 81%.

So what gives? If it keeps reporting inflated charge levels it's safe to assume I'm still running the risk of it crashing on me out of the blue. Does it just need more "breaking in" or am I dealing with a lemon here? The official Asus 6 cell didn't need any calibrating, this is getting annoying.

 

Okay, for the first time since I got the battery I finally got a consistent charge report. I turned it off yesterday at 76% charge, and now after 24 hours I've started it again and it still reports 76%. Possible that it's finally stabilizing?

And thanks for moving the thread, mods!

 

Some of the tips in that link are BS. For example:

3. Rechargeable batteries undergo self-discharging when left unused. Always store a battery pack in a fully charged stage for storage.

Educate yourself and read the scientific reasoning behind why you should store it at 40% (or at least the bottom line) and make sure you get correct info from here:

Battery information from Battery University

 

That's a strange sounding battery. I wonder if it's not actually Li-Ion, but something else entirely. Either that or else the battery gauge is really screwy. Personally, with performance like that, I'm not sure I'd trust it.

 

Can't really offer insight on that, all I know is what it says on the relatively poorly applied label. A33-M50 model, Li-Ion, +11.1V, 7200mAh, made in China by AsusT ak (original is A32-N61, AsusT eK, +10.8V, 4400 mAh, 48Wh). So yes, a knock-off much like I expected from the start, I was just hoping it might prove a decent knock-off.

I've noticed that if I discharge it in a single go (did twice over the weekend for calibration purposes) it behaves excellently, lasts for as long as it reports it still has charge and on High Performance with all power saving features disabled it kept the laptop idling for over 5 hours. Problems seem to pop up after it's been turned off and left for a while. I just booted it up again and now it's telling me it has 73% left even though just a few hours ago I'd discharged it to 71%.

I've got a full day on the move tomorrow so I'll give it another go but I have this sinking feeling that it'll end up reporting an abnormally high charge after being depleted under 50% and then end up with the machine shutting off out of the blue. Not much I can do about it either, I doubt complaining to the seller will get them to send me a replacement, and even if they do what are the odds that one would actually work properly...

 

Whelp, didn't actually get much of a chance to use the laptop on the road today, so it's still at over 60% and therefore couldn't test whether it goes screwy at low charges like it did with that 52% instead of ~30% report a while ago. Installed Battery Bar though and I'll start using that for taking notes instead. Says capacity X of 77.077mWh, and Battery Wear 0% of 76.890mWh. Not sure why that minute difference there, but heck, doesn't look like something to worry over. The real-time readings are accurate, with an approximate 11mW consumption it took ~25s to run down 0.1% of the charge, roughly consistent with the ~7 hours lifetime estimate given at the time.