Samsung RF710 Battery Not Charging

Hi all, First (desperate!) post... On my last nerve with this one!

I have a Samsung RF710 i7 laptop, approximately just over a year old. Recently upgraded the RAM and installed an SSD hard drive with a fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate.

On completing the upgrade I noticed the battery was not charging. No problem, ordered a replacement battery and tried a new charger. Battery arrived, same problem.

Have gone through the whole rigmarole of disabling and uninstalling the ACPI driver in device managers, BIOS is upgraded to the newest version.

The weird thing is that when I replace the SSD with the old hard drive (with a working, albeit slow install of Windows 7) the same problem with the battery not charging - it was working before the reinstall. So that's ruling out a Software or OS issue.

So it must be a hardware or BIOS issue, can't see anything in the BIOS settings and have tried 2 different batteries and chargers (work in IT so have some in stock).

Has anyone encountered anything like this before? I've attached a screenshot of the behaviour of the battery icon when the AC charger is plugged in and unplugged. Note the AC charging icon (lightning bolt) isn't there although briefly comes on when booting up and instantly disappears?

Strange eh! Any ideas?

 

What does HWiNFO have to say about the battery? You can look in two places:

(i) At the bottom of the hardware list where clicking on the battery should give in=fo such as: Manufacturer name, Design capacity, Fully charged capacity, Wear level and Current capacity; and

(ii) At the bottom of the sensors list: Voltage, Capacity and Charge rate (- means discharge when you are using the battery). What happens to the charge rate when you disconnect the PSU, wait a minute then reconnect it?

John

 

Hi John,

Thanks for your reply, great little diags program that...

Attached images.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16737140/batterystats.jpg

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16737140/batterystats2.jpg

 

1. If those graphics are for the new battery it should not have 20% wear although a few % is fairly common.

2. They confirm what Windows is saying: When you run on battery then it is discharging but when you plug the power back in then it does not charge. Suspicion has to fall on the part of the electronics associated with charging the battery.

There's a chance that you might have upset it while swapping parts but it might have just chosen to die at about the same time. I would try to get inside and trace through the circuits between the battery and the mainboard in case something got disconnected. It would also be worthwhile looking at the contacts in the computer where the battery connects.

John

 

Cheers again John, had a quick look all the contacts seem fine. I'll raise a support ticket with Sammy and see what they say.