A couple of days ago, my laptop battery starting discharging at random times. I could rectify this by either pushing the A/C cable in or rotating it slightly. Now the battery discharges unless the A/C cable is pushed in constantly.

A few months ago I had a similar problem, though it was accompanied by the computer randomly shutting off. The battery had to be removed and reinserted before I could successfully power the machine back on. Purchasing a new A/C cable fixed this problem quite well.

I suspect it may be the battery this time. The gnome battery monitor in LMDE is going completely nuts, announcing I have five minutes of power left and then happily informing me that I have 10 hours 42 minutes only a few moments later.

At first I would've said it's the power cable, but you've already replaced that. If you have a volt meter, check that you're getting DC xx volts out of the power cable as expected, but only do this if you know what you're doing, I don't wish you to get electrocuted by my recommendation.

It may be that the battery has a problem. Look up the specs on the battery. When the computer is complaining, shut it right off, take out the battery and take a voltage measurement. If it is just about the shutdown voltage, then it's not charging for whatever reason. If it's fully charged, then there's something wrong with your detection software or hardware.

Depending on the distro, you should be able to access the battery voltage from the /proc/acpi tree, give that a shot. You'll need to learn the top and lowest voltages that the battery is expected to have. But furthermore, the other problem is that the battery should absolutely not be being looked at when you're on AC power. If that's happening, then whatever the state of your battery, something is wrong with your system or software.

Can you boot to another distro, or OS? Does it behave then?

I booted into my separate Debian partition and the behavior is the same.

I would also add that the "box" in the A/C cable emits a constant, high-pitched sound when the battery begins discharging, which would indicate in my limited experience that the current isn't reaching the laptop.

Sounds like a circuitry problem with the external charger.

Would purchasing a new charger rectify this problem?

The little battery light on my laptop is no longer turning on when the laptop is charging by all other indications. I shut down the computer and removed the battery for a while and everything seemed normal after I rebooted, but the behavior quickly returned.

Hi,

Remove the battery entirely from system. You can now run the laptop from the AC power pack. If the Laptop will not run or power up with the battery removed and AC connected then you will need to replace the power pack. Hopefully the battery & Laptop circuitry are not damaged.

The laptop will run on A/C no battery if I manually press the cable into the laptop port. If I relieve even a little bit a pressure, the laptop shuts off. The battery charges when I apply pressure, but discharges if I do not.

As far as I know the circuitry should not be damaged.

Hi,

Then it appears to be either the connector body (female) or the male (laptop) connection. It depends on how the male connector is made to the motherboard. Most are reinforce by the body to the motherboard. With the battery out, when you press the connector do you loos power? What about flexing the wire to the body of the female connector (while holding the connector firmly in place to the laptop). Intermittent?

The laptop continues charging if I flex the wire.

Hi,

Battery is removed when you do this?

Eh... I think so... the lappie is not charging at all no matter what I do now. I think this laptop may be done for.

Hi,

Physically take the battery out so you know it's not in the system. Run it on AC and perform the fore-mentioned test(s), no harm with battery removed.

If your laptop is connected to the AC 24/7 there is not a reason to keep the battery in place. That is unless you want protection when lose of AC completely or portability. With a functional battery in place you would be able to shut down gracefully. If the battery is damaged you are testing fate here. If a cell is bad you could cause a fire or exploded battery then fire. Safety!

It's sounding to me that the power connector within the laptop is faulty. I've seen quite a few where power sockets which are attached to the motherboard eventually end up with chrystalised solder joints which can overheat and cause intermittent connection and, as laptops are pulling 3 to 4 amps, burn the motherboard. You may be able to smell burning if you sniff the socket.

You haven't said what make and model of laptop? You can usually go and Google service manuals (Not user handbooks) and find out how to strip down the laptop (It's remembering which screw length fits where which is the difficult part! ) I'd also try googling "<laptop model> power problem" and see if it's something others have come across and if so, how they resolved the problem.

My

Play Bonny!

After some fruitless googling, I've listed the item on ebay for parts/repair. Could put the money towards a netbook as I am no longer the gamer I once was.

Marking the thread as SOLVED