Re: Toshiba battery dead
On 29 Mar 2005, Bill Moseley wrote:
> I have a laptop and the battery has been dying. It's been where I
> can only have it off power for a few minutes before it dies. The
> laptop has a LED that is green when the battery is fully charged and
> yellow when partially charged. Now, the LED is not lit at all and if
> I unplug the power the laptop dies immediately.
>
> I was planning on buying a new battery, but I'm now worried that
> there's something wrong with the laptop -- and I don't want to spend
> a good chunk of cash if the laptop charging system is not working.
>
> So, does anyone know what the LED not lighting might mean, and also
> is there any way to monitor the charging system from the OS? toshset
> doesn't see to provide anything.
Obviously, there /could/ be something wrong with your laptop, but in
general, this is a pretty normal situation.
Modern batteries are "smart" - they have a tiny bit of hardware in them
that reports on the state of the battery, and helps manage charging, and
things like that.
This runs off the battery itself, and is probably what controls the LED
on the battery as well.
When the charge gets low enough, the voltage drops away too, and
eventually this will get low enough to kill off the integrated device
and result in the symptoms you see.
I have had this happen with a number of batteries over the years, and
none of the laptops have been at fault yet.
So, you are probably safe. :)
Daniel
--
Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power
predominates,love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.
-- Carl Jung
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