Need help with laptop battery problem

[JEFF247]

I have a Toshiba laptop that is 2-3 years old (Windows Vista). Long story short, when I unplug power cord, laptop looses power and shuts down. Battery has always had plenty of juice and no sign of loosing power. When it did it the first time today, time went back to 12-31-2004. Time is now correct after I corrected, shutdown and started. If I put cursor over battery strength on taskbar it's at 100%. Just used battery power this morning for an hour with no problem. Why does it seem to be dead now? Is it dead? Thanks for you help.

 

[nofrill]

Time to buy a new battery if you want to continue using your laptop. It doesn't really matter whether the replacement battery is OEM or no-name Made-In-China ones, but buying the latter would save you a lot of money.

Modern manufacturing industry only expects usable lifespan of 3 to 5 years. It is cheaper to buy new products than to repair them. Many times you cannot even repair them because they do not make the parts. They "push technology" to make sure older products become obsolete. They produce new models every 1 to 6 months to lure consumers who want to "keep up with the latest and greatest".

This is how world economy works now, sorry about drifting off-topic and old man babbling.

 

[JEFF247]

It's a miracle!! After duplicating and confirming the problem I described above 3 times, I shut down my laptop (normally) and pulled the plug to pack it up. I decide to confirm again, by trying to start with the laptop unplugged. It should not start. Voila! It started right up like nothing ever happened. Sorry to waste your time. I'll be back if it happens again! Thanks.

 

[WoodPeckr]

Sounds like a faulty intermittent electrical connection acting up or it might bit a bit of crud built up causing a weak connection. Take a good look at your contact points to see if they need some cleaning.

 

[Anynym]

Could be any of a number of issues.

If the time-of-day clock is resetting, the CMOS battery *may* be dead (looks like a large watch battery attached to the mainboard). Tough to check it without removing it, though. And it may recharge (but only you will know if it's holding a charge).

Not sure why the machine would shut down, tho, after removing the power cord.

 

[JEFF247]

So far so good. Haven't had a problem since my OP.

 

[JEFF247]

What a fucking pain in the ass. The laptop died a second time. I decide to replace the CMOS battery. Un-fucking-believable. Some engineer figured out the worst possible place to put a $2 battery and then solder it in. On the bottom side of the motherboard. I had to take everything out. CD, Hard drive, ram, modem, keyboard, etc. Had to detach the display. Battery looked like it popped and the traces were burnt so I bought a new laptop.