Laptop battery not recharging but not sure it's a battery problem

[hackmole]

My laptop battery has not been recharging regularly. Sometimes when I plug it in, it recharges and most of the time it doesn't recharge. It now no longer recharges at all.

I have had other laptops and usually the time of charge gets less and less but this was not the case with this battery. It gave me the full recharge time and then over a few weeks would only recharge sometimes and then now not at all.

Has anyone had experience with this? Is this a battery problem or is something else going on like a bad wire or something. The laptop will run with the wire connected but it just won't recharge any more.

 

[Burpo]

You didn't say how old, or what model laptop, but it's probably the battery..

 

[Dahak]

I have had seen in older laptops that it could also be the ac jack as well. if you move the cord around does it feel loose?

But as Burpo said, without more details of the model of the laptop hard to say.

As an example my Elitebook 8470p, i had to purchase a new battery because it would only change for about 15min runtime

 

[mrpete]

As Dahak says it could be the AC adapter or the "fit" of the adapter connector into the laptop. If you have access to a volt ohm meter/multilmeter check how many volts it is putting out. If it is zero or simply not what the laptop needs that is your problem. Dahak's suggestion to check the connector and "does it feel loose" sounds like a good one for you.

 

[bruceb]

Common issue with a lot of laptops, is the connection from the power jack to the printed circuit board, will at times, develop an intermittent or cold solder joint. Easily seen by removing the laptop bottom cover and resoldering it if that is the case.

 

[hackmole]

Thank you, I will check out the adapter and the circuit board because I was getting more than 3 hours of battery time though it would end up being much less if I played videos. The laptop is a Dell Inspiron 1545. The only thing about the adapter is that I figure if it is able to power the laptop then there should be nothing wrong with it recharging the battery. So it might more likely be something wrong on the circuit board. If it is not too difficult to get to I will look at it but if I have to open up 100 mini-sized screws to get to it and then don't remember how to put it all back together again then for it. I don't like messing with laptops because things are too tiny and because I forget how to put it all back together again.