Laptop battery dead?

[Avocet]

Hi All,

I've an old Toshiba Satillite Pro and yesterday, the battery charging light refused to come on when it was plugged in. Up until then the battery had been fine, lasting about 1.75 - 2 h in typical use. Before I spend almost as much as the computer is worth on a new battery, is there any way I can tell whether the problem is the battery or the on-board charger not working?

[agent006]

How old is it? There might be a button on the battery that makes some lights come one to indicate the elvel of charge it has left.

[Mad Dave]

Ive got a Toshiba Portege, its about 2 years old and the battery lasts about 30 minutes if ive used the thing quite recently (like, within the last 24hours). If ive left it for a while, the battery wont last at all.

Its infuriating, but i think its a trait with laptop batteries.

[Avocet]

Thanks all,

No it hasn't got LEDs on and it must be nearly 8 years old if it's the original one. It used to last nearly 2 hours as long as I ws just word-processing with the screen brightness down.

[viper_larry]

Mad Dave said:

Ive got a Toshiba Portege, its about 2 years old and the battery lasts about 30 minutes if ive used the thing quite recently (like, within the last 24hours). If ive left it for a while, the battery wont last at all. Its infuriating, but i think its a trait with laptop batteries.

I too have a Portégé (3480CT) and the battery gets to 48% the dies completely. Apparently they have 4 cells in serial in the battery compartment which discharge in turn. If one cell dies, then the others after it cannot be used, hence the 50% capacity on my battery.

Probably find the same problem with yours...

[Podie]

Sounds to me like the battery has run it's life. Lithium Ion cells tend to last 1000 or so cycles, after which they're dead.

My Dell Inspiron used to give around 7 hours charge, but 4 years down the line, it won't even power up the machine...

If it's under warranty, get it changed, otherwise you'll need to buy a new one.

Sorry for being the bearer of bad news...