Laptop charging problem

So my boss brought his laptop in to me because everytime he unplugged the AC power, it shut off. At first I thought battery, being the most obvious thing, was the culprit. I found out that he had just put a new battery into the laptop about 9mo. ago (because it was losing charge after only an hour or so.
He had a virus about a month ago, and did a system restore; only AFTER this did his problems start. I tried a BIOS update, wondering if something happened during the restore, but it doesn't appear to make a difference. I have also uninstalled and reinstalled the battery controller in the hardware manager.

His battery monitor doesn't even show a battery when you go to check the charge level, and the charge light (lightening bolt) doesn't stay on when plugged in...only for a few moments after startup (or randomly).

Is this another battery problem (system does run w/o battery on ac only), or an internal problem with the mother board (charging system?).

If it works plugged in I don't think it can be a motherboard issue. Either the computer isn't recognizing that there is a battery or battery is junk. My best guess...

What kind of battery did he buy. If you buy the cheaps that you can get I have seen those go bad again in 3 months. It is probably the battery.

Hmm I'll have to find out. Is it possible for it to run fine but just NOT charge the battery?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BR3W CITY

Hmm I'll have to find out. Is it possible for it to run fine but just NOT charge the battery?

---

Yes it is. you just have no battery.

You can use the laptop without the battery in it in most cases if its plugged in

ya. We got a new battery and it seems fine, "charging" light on the front still doesn't seem to come on, oh well..works fine!

Try these:

Batterycare is a free utility to tell you your battery life/capacity:
http://batterycare.bkspot.com/en/download.html

Also, this may or may not fix it:

1. Go to Device Manager.
2. Expand the Batteries category.
3. Under the Batteries category, right-click the Microsoft ACPI Compliant Control Method Battery listing, and select Uninstall .
DO NOT remove the Microsoft AC Adapter driver or any other ACPI compliant driver.
4. On the Device Manager taskbar, click Scan for hardware changes .
Alternately, select Action > Scan for hardware changes .
Windows will scan your computer for hardware that doesn't have drivers installed, and will install the drivers needed to manage your battery's power. The notebook should now indicate that the battery is charging.