What's going on with my laptop?

[Masterlegodude]

I've had this laptop for 2 or so years and it's been working just fine, but for quite a few months (not sure how many but i think about 5 - 7 months), my laptop has been having problems with having it's battery charge and just running in general

Problems with charging consist of different issues happening with pretty much any charger wires, even if they're brand new and still in good condition, one issue is where the laptop will have the lights indicate that it's charging, but the icon will say that it's plugged in but not charging, then a second issue with is the first one vise-versa where the icon will say it's charging, even as far as playing the charge animation, but the power light and the charge light will be orange and blink on and off, indicating it's plugged in, but not charging, also, i'm not sure if the laptop can die when either issue is happening, i haven't kept it in that situation long enough to find out

But what's weird is that most of the time i'm using the charger, it works just fine, the lights and the battery icon both indicate it's plugged in and charging and shows the battery percentage going up after a while of charging, but once one of those two problems start, chances are, it doesn't stop for a long time, and it fluctuates between the two

Something may be wrong with the port, but i can't see anything wrong from the outside, so if it's coming from inside the laptop, is there something i can do about it?


And as for running in general, there are times where it just randomly shuts off without any warning, and when i turn it back on, the battery percentage is below the critical battery percentage of 7%, i usually find it at 1%, even though before it shuts off, it's still in the progress of charging, like maybe it'll be around 58%, for example, and it'll just shut off

I assume it's overheating when that happens, because my laptop gets really hot sometimes, especially when i have a game running (even if it's something small like Blockland or Minecraft), but i haven't known my laptop to actually overheat and shut off in the 2 or so years i've had it until a while back, almost the same time the problems with charging started happening

Another issue is when i shut off my laptop, the power light will come back on, but orange, turning the laptop back on will only mix the blue 'on' light with this strange orange light, shutting the laptop off, the blue light will go off, but the orange will stay on, the only way i know to get rid of the orange light is to remove the battery and put it back in

I really don't know what causes that as it seems to happen randomly, it doesn't always happen when it shuts down

So any of you tech savvies know what i can do about this?

[Ad Bot]

[Cassord²]

you should probably just get a new one. it's probably not worth the struggle of fixing it.

[Car Selling Pyro]

coming from the guy who only skimmed over this, i think it's a problem with the battery

try to get a new one from walmart, and if the problem doesn't fix itself, you can always take it back

[Blockzillahead]

The plugged in, not charging is most of the time a software bug. It happens to me even though both my charger and battery are at the prime point of their lives. I don't feel comfortable doing it but if I plug it out and in, within 2 or 3 tries it fixes it.

[Masterlegodude]

you should probably just get a new one. it's probably not worth the struggle of fixing it.

I'd seriously consider that if i could afford a laptop that was as good if not better than my current one

coming from the guy who only skimmed over this, i think it's a problem with the battery

try to get a new one from walmart, and if the problem doesn't fix itself, you can always take it back

I did get a new battery a while back, but after a while, the problems returned

The plugged in, not charging is most of the time a software bug. It happens to me even though both my charger and battery are at the prime point of their lives. I don't feel comfortable doing it but if I plug it out and in, within 2 or 3 tries it fixes it.

I've tried that, sometimes much more than 3 times, but even if it starts out saying that it's charging, it changes into saying that it's not charging

I had it on a relatively flat surface and plugged the laptop back in and it was actually charging, until i picked it up, put it on my lap and started using it, after a few minutes it said it wasn't charging

It seems almost as if gravity's putting enough weight on the plug when it's on my lap that it causes the port to freak out, i'm really confused

[Pecon]

Does this happen to be an Acer Aspire 5500 series?

[Masterlegodude]

Does this happen to be an Acer Aspire 5500 series?

It's a Toshiba Satellite L755D

[Pecon]

Well, it's not the same laptop but it sounds like the same issue. I'll just elaborate more on what I said over steam.

Basically, the laptop started as you said, with the "Plugged in, not charging" and "Flashing orange charging light". This occurrence became more and more frequent, but soon got to a point where sometimes plugging it in would do nothing at all. I got a replacement battery for it, since I thought that the shot battery could be the issue. The new battery only extended the battery life, as you would expect, but didn't fix the issue with it not charging. It became a running gag with some of my friends that my laptop only charged "When it felt like it". The times where it would charge became more and more infrequent, and it was pretty quickly useless. Soon after that I learned that the issue had to do with the laptop's charging board dying out. I've looked online, and it doesn't look like it's easy to find replacement charging boards, but that's probably your best bet to save your computer once the issues start getting worse.

[Masterlegodude]

Bump from second page

And as for running in general, there are times where it just randomly shuts off without any warning, and when i turn it back on, the battery percentage is below the critical battery percentage of 7%, i usually find it at 1%, even though before it shuts off, it's still in the progress of charging, like maybe it'll be around 58%, for example, and it'll just shut off

I assume it's overheating when that happens, because my laptop gets really hot sometimes, especially when i have a game running (even if it's something small like Blockland or Minecraft), but i haven't known my laptop to actually overheat and shut off in the 2 or so years i've had it until a while back, almost the same time the problems with charging started happening

I'd especially like to know how i can stop this from happening

Being that this is my second battery that it's happening with, i doubt it's a battery issue unless i'm just unlucky and get batteries that just don't work after a few months of use

[xSetrox]

you should consider buying a desktop, laptops aren't worth fixing really, like that guy said
if you need to use it until you buy a desktop, that's fine
just a tip, take out all the gizmos of the laptop and put them into the desktop, easy upgrade

[Masterlegodude]

you should consider buying a desktop, laptops aren't worth fixing really, like that guy said

That's not really helpful to my situation...

if you need to use it until you buy a desktop, that's fine
just a tip, take out all the gizmos of the laptop and put them into the desktop, easy upgrade

I got a laptop for when i'm unable to use a computer, but as of last August, it's become pretty much my only way of using the internet or playing games, so that's why i'm stuck with having to deal with these problems instead of trashing it

[Masterlegodude]

Bump

Any more helpful advice that doesn't include buying a new laptop?

[Skig]

Try cleaning out the fans and see if that helps the overheating

[Doughboy]

how much did the laptop cost?

[Cynic]

the battery is stuffting out, dying cells etc

just pick up a new battery