Netbook Battery Problem

[sbrylski]

My netbook is about six months old. The battery itself seems fine, but the power icon always reads either full power, or zero power. I've been trying to figure out when it reads what, and it seems like it reads full power after letting it charge overnight which is normal, but once I start using the battery power it doesn't gradually go down. Instead, once I shut it down and then reboot it, if its not at full power it reads 0%. It'll run fine at 0%, then eventually die without any warning.

 

I never run the laptop for longer than an hour or three a day, so I don't know if I'm not getting a full charge or anything (I'm supposed to get like 6 hours of battery life.)

 

Any ideas on how to get my battery power indicator working accurately again?

[jwaltz]

Which type of netbook is it? I know Eee PC batteries are fairly affordable. It could also be the charging mechanism on the netbook as well.

[sbrylski]

Which type of netbook is it? I know Eee PC batteries are fairly affordable. It could also be the charging mechanism on the netbook as well.

Samsung NC10.

[jwaltz]

I did a quick search and that doesn't seem to be a rare problem. The Samsungs have great battery life but the battery's can go flat in 6 months if you've been using it often. It doesn't happen all the time but it does happen every so often. Here's a site with a discussion of this problem:

 

http://discuss.gdgt.com/samsung/nc10/support/Battery-will-not-charge-1/

 

 

The only solution I saw was to buy a new battery. That will probably run you around $50-$70 dollars.

[sbrylski]

But the thing is the battery itself seems to work fine. It charges, and the machine runs off battery power for over an hour. I haven't had to use it any longer than about an hour and a half since this problem first occurred, so I don't know how long of a charge the battery is holding and whether that's diminished or not.

 

The problem is just that the machine no longer tells me how much charge I have left. It either says full power, or no power. This might be accompanied with a shorter battery life, which I might test out tomorrow just so I know.

 

Its a problem I can live with, its just kind of annoying.

[jwaltz]

Huh. I'd go to Samsung's website and ask tech support. They may have a solution. You could reset the battery like one guy suggested in the link I posted. I think you do that by removing the battery for a few minutes and then putting it back in. It's probably worth a shot.

[sbrylski]

Huh. I'd go to Samsung's website and ask tech support. They may have a solution. You could reset the battery like one guy suggested in the link I posted. I think you do that by removing the battery for a few minutes and then putting it back in. It's probably worth a shot.

Tried it before I read that. I'll probably try the tech support.