[Phlegmbot]

Hi,

 

So my battery started blinking orange the other day. And not charging. I assumed this meant I needed a new battery. The battery I had, while about 2 years old, was not a Dell brand battery but rather a compatible one (it cost $115 less than Dell's). OK, fine, got a new one.

 

I put the new battery, and the blinking stopped.

 

For the whole day it was fine...then it suddenly started again.

 

I tried restarting. Fixed...then it started again at some point.

 

I tried going to the device manager, removed Microsoft ACPI, restarted. That worked.

 

Until later: I think the culprit is related to Sleep Mode. When I took it out of Sleep Mode and went back to work, the orange blinking happened again. And the newer battery, like the 2-y-o one, isn't charging.

 

I'm pretty sure -- although I've not yet double-checked to be certain -- that the battery charges if the computer is either off but plugged in or in Hibernate but plugged in. The issue seems to be Sleep Mode related (again, not 100% certain of any of this as yet).

 

Dell has a bunch of hardware checks on its site (you DL a program called Dell System Detect and choose on their site which tests you want to perform). I did the Battery Test and the Motherboard Test -- it passed both w/out issue.

 

It's definitely not the batteries. Ideas?

 

Thanks!!

[Advertisements]

Hello Phlegmbot,

 

Couple of questions if I may;

 

Was the computer upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10.

 

If yes to the above, did the problem first become apparent after the upgrade.

[phillpower2]

Hello Phlegmbot,

 

Couple of questions if I may;

 

Was the computer upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10.

 

If yes to the above, did the problem first become apparent after the upgrade.

[Phlegmbot]

Hi, Phill! And of course you may!

 

The computer has NOT yet been upgraded (although I plan to do that before the end of the month).

 

And, OK, I MAY have discovered something: It may NOT be related to the Sleep Mode after all. It MIGHT be related to something about heat. I re-seated the battery (for the 3rd or 4th time), and that also seems to have helped (Not sure what was so different this time). But earlier today I was using the computer on battery power and -- POOF! -- it shut off all of a sudden. When I got to an outlet to plug 'er in, I let the battery charge for about 5 mins before actually turning on the computer, and the battery power read at 93%. Which makes no sense. Unless the "socket" for the battery is now faulty. I dunno.

 

Thoughts?

[phillpower2]

Hello Phlegmbot,

 

I MAY have discovered something: It may NOT be related to the Sleep Mode after all. It MIGHT be related to something about heat.

 

 

One way to check this would be to remove the battery and use only the AC adapter to power the notebook and then do some demanding gaming or run a demanding application such as Unigene Valley benchmark (free) or Furmark.

 

In case you are not aware, Dell notebooks are notoriously picky about third party batteries, one such blog detailing the fact here

[Phlegmbot]

One way to check this would be to remove the battery and use only the AC adapter to power the notebook and then do some demanding gaming or run a demanding application such as Unigene Valley benchmark (free) or Furmark.

 

OK. But can you please explain to me how this tests the if overheating affects the battery if I've pulled the battery out?

 

In case you are not aware, Dell notebooks are notoriously picky about third party batteries, one such blog detailing the fact here

 

Yup. I'm aware of this. But this is actually my 2nd new battery on this PC, and it's made by the same off-brand co. as the last one. It cost me $28US and lasted a year-and-a-half, where Dell's $135-150 battery lasted 3 years. I never had any problems with it. That all said, at least I've confirmed that the last battery WAS indeed dead, b/c, while I am having some weird issues here, this new one does charge and generally works (outside of whatever this glitch is that's happening).

[phillpower2]

Best Answer

Overheating affects electrical hardware in various ways and the idea of removing the battery is to see if the computer shuts down when under heavy load, if it does, the battery is removed as a possible cause of the shut downs and resolving any overheating problem may also cure the battery problem or alternatively it may prove that there is a battery issue.

 

The 3rd party battery info was just that as in I was just making sure that you were aware, I am not in a position to say who makes the best batteries and would certainly not say that a Dell battery is better than an OEM one, as long as the battery is of  good quality and from a reputable seller you should not expect to have issues with, Dell would most likely not support me on this.

[Phlegmbot]

Hi, Phill!

 

Sorry for the delayed reply, had a couple of issues to deal with outside of computer troubles

 

Thank you for the explanation(s). I'll have a chance to work on the computer for an extended period this evening w/out the battery, so I'll check it out tonight, perhaps tomorrow as well, and then report back.

 

-PB

[phillpower2]

Hi PB,

 

No worries and thanks for the update 

[Phlegmbot]

OK, so, I'm not getting any overheating issues w/out the battery.

 

When I went out on the train (w/out the PC plugged in obvs), the computer DID suddenly shut down, dead...but I've not been able to repeat that.

 

I am gonna open it up and give it a good cleaning. But, when the computer gets hot, and the fan starts going...the orange light starts blinking.

 

Thoughts?

[Phlegmbot]

New wrinkle to add to the above reply:

 

I restarted and the battery meter in the corner isn't visible. The computer was running w/out issue on battery power for about 15 mins before I even noticed that (this is all after I shut down, cleaned the fan, cleaned the areas by the battery, etc. [I wipe it all down with cotton swabs until the swabs show no dirt]). So, OK, i figured I'd go into setup and see if there's some reason that it was shut off.

 

The attached image has green arrows pointing out the problems.  Along the top is the Taskbar. (The pic is cropped so the Windows circle logo at left cut cut out and the time at right is cut off as well.)

 

(And don't make fun of me for having AOL on my PC. I like the way it arranges my e-mail. [If you've a suggestion for a free or inexpensive customizable e-mail client that can handle several addys, I'm open. Everything I've seen/tried is awful.])

 

Thanks as always for your help, Phill!

 

PBot

Attached Thumbnails

• 

[phillpower2]

Obvious question but have to ask, have you tried turning on the power icon, if yes but are unable to please see below;

 

Download then run the Windows All in One Repair (free)  from here, disregard the malware guidance but follow the other steps to the letter and in particular ensuring that you first create a new restore point and perform a proper Windows clean boot before running the repair, details for the clean boot here.

 

We can look at the battery problem afterwards if needs be.

 

If you like AOL that is all that matters 

 

You are most welcome btw PBot 

[Phlegmbot]

Hey there!

 

To answer your question: In the image, the bottom green arrow is pointing to the battery option -- it's greyed out. So, yup, I tried switching it on, but that option is not available.

 

More importantly:

My computer's usually in Hibernation mode when off. I was going to restart today, but when I brought it out of Hibernate, I got the message:

"Your Hard Drive is Failing -- Backup Your Data Now."

 

This happened before it actually went back into the Windows Desktop, so it wasn't a pop-up...it looked like a DOS screen. The HDD is literally brand new. 3 Months ago I had the same issue -- that HDD was indeed failing (numerous files were unrecoverable and/or damaged). But this time? No way. That said, I AM afraid to restart. Last time, I couldn't get back into Windows. Although that was after a Win10 upgrade.

 

I had upgraded to Win10. And, at the time many people were having a security issue w/the OS (some update seemed to corrupt Win10 if you were lucky enough to have Avast! or certain other AV software), so it seemed to be part of that (see the earlier thread about which I had contacted you privately for some help). 

 

I have backed up everything today...but this issue seems to have taken a turn. Please let me know if I should start a new thread or continue w/the steps above.

 

Thank you!

 

PBot

[phillpower2]

To answer your question: In the image, the bottom green arrow is pointing to the battery option -- it's greyed out. So, yup, I tried switching it on, but that option is not available.

 

 

As I thought but always like to have things confirmed 

 

More importantly:

My computer's usually in Hibernation mode when off. I was going to restart today, but when I brought it out of Hibernate, I got the message:

"Your Hard Drive is Failing -- Backup Your Data Now."

 

 

Hibernation can cause problems and like screen savers I always recommend it be disabled.

 

Not unheard of new HDDs failing but in this instance it seems a little off, good call backing up your data though.

 

As your data has been backed up I would suggest that you try restarting and then running the Windows AIO repair tool, that should flag up any issues with the HDD or OS.

 

No need to start a new thread btw as quite happy to continue helping you here.

[Phlegmbot]

Hi, Phill,

A couple of things:

Am writing you from my phone, b/c Chkdsk had been running for 4 hours. It's stuck in my cbz and cbr files. (I forgot that chkdsk does that). It took over an hour to get through a folder of Howard the Duck. It's been on some other folder for 2.5 hours at the time of writing, with no surgery progress. (it moved through one more file while typing this)

2 days ago I cleaned the battery connectors and the fan. The orange battery light stopped flashing. Today, after I ran the Pre-Scan, and then let it make the suggested changes, 2 things happened in the Repair program: 1. The orange line returned. 2. The "hard drive error" message popped up in Windows.

Now, i rebooted into safe, did the rest of the steps, bite when it does intro Windows, I get two errors -- can't detect battery, disk is failing. I then rebooted to let it Chkdsk (see above).

[Phlegmbot]

P.s. Sugary = further

Orange line = orange light

Bite when it does into Windows = but when it goes into Windows

(sorry, on my phone your site does not offer an Edit Post option)