Laptop battery

[Marenghi]

my quite old laptop has decided that it won't power-up without the mains connected to it now and will immediately shut down if the mains is switched off. so i'm guessing the battery has had it? are they easy enough to replace?

[Flibb]

depends on the laptop, but generally you just pull old one out, then insert new one.

[Marenghi]

just what i was hoping for, thanks!

[watercooled]

No harder than changing the batteries in a remote most of the time.

[circuitmonkey]

The hardest part of replacing my dead laptop battery was finding a reputable company on the internet to buy a replacement from. In the end I decided to chance it with a company called 365peak. It was half the price then lenovo's 6 cell and I got a 9 cell. It's been 6 months and its now going strong, only bad thing I've to say about the whole situation was the length of time it took to be delivered.

[watercooled]

I've suggested this elsewhere on the forum, if you're handy with a soldering iron and know your stuff with Li-ion batteries and electronics you could buy some new cells and replace them inside the battery pack itself. They are usually 18650 cells. It wasn't received too well last time I suggested it so I'll say again, this is only advisable if you know what you're doing; Li-ion batteries can be very dangerous if they're mis-treated.

[Kumagoro]

It could also be the charging circuit on the mobo which has gone so if a new batt doesnt
work it could be that, that is if you get a working new one.

[circuitmonkey]

I've suggested this elsewhere on the forum, if you're handy with a soldering iron and know your stuff with Li-ion batteries and electronics you could buy some new cells and replace them inside the battery pack itself. They are usually 18650 cells. It wasn't received too well last time I suggested it so I'll say again, this is only advisable if you know what you're doing; Li-ion batteries can be very dangerous if they're mis-treated.

In my case the cells where holding charge fine, but the charging circuit board was fried. I suppose I could have spent the time replacing the components, and I may well do that at some point.

[this_is_gav]

I've no idea how, but our Acer netbooks were sorted by simply flashing the latest BIOS. The batteries themselves (note plural, as it was several netbooks) were fine.

Though unlikely to do anything in 95% of circumstances, it's certainly worth a go given it's free.