Vaio battery charging problem

[Boris999]

For about two weeks I was experiencing problems with charging battery on my Sony Vaio PCG-Z1XMP.

The system tray battery indicator kept constantly changing between charging / not charging. About every 30 seconds. Recently the icon settled at charging, but the battery level stays at 0% and won't go up.

Battery Characteristics from PowerPanel:

Manufacturer: Sony Corp.
Battery Name: PCGA-BP2V
Chemistry: Li-ion
Charge Cycles: 362
Remaining Capacity: 0.00 Wh
Full Charge Capacity: 37.65 Wh
Design Capacity: 48.84

Please advise whether the problem is with the battery, power supply or anything else.

Many thanks
Boris

[jammold]

To me it does sound like your battery pack is completely dead.

Can I ask - how long have you had the laptop and battery? If you have had the laptop and battery for less than one year you should speak to Sony as the laptop is covered by a one year guarantee.

Please note however Sony batteries are only guaranteed for NINETY (90) DAYS from the date of purchase.

The fact you have 0.00Wh as your remaining capacity is worrying - especially as it sounds like its been charging for a long time.

Assuming your laptop is less than one year old Sony should ascertain if the fault lies with the laptop charging bay or the battery itself.

As a test, unplug the mains power from your laptop and try to switch on the laptop - if it starts correctly and runs for an hour or more the battery should be OK - and the problem is then with the on-board battery controller reporting incorrect data to the computer.

However if the computer will not start or starts for a brief moment before dying completely the battery is dead.

I hope this helps.

[AndrewBazley]

Interstingly enough my PCG K315Z is less than a year old and I to am finding my sessions on battery are becoming shorter and shorter. I don't seem able to get above approx. 90% charged status and I just about get 20 minutes or so of use before getting the crtiical battery warning. I have posted this issue via e-support. If you have any other info on this subject I would be grateful. I have made the point in my e-support note the unit is still under warranty.................... lets see what happens.

[Boris999]

Thanks for the reply James.

The laptop (and battery) is 18 month.

Yesterday the charging/not charging was worse than ever. It kept switching between the two modes once in about two seconds. Eventually I ended up disabling the system tray icons as I was constantly getting Windows critical battery level warnings and Powermeter kept informing me about changing profiles.

As suggested, I disconnected the power supply and turned the laptop on. It was running for three minutes then turned itself off.

Eventually, the battery started charging and the laptop is currently running on batteries and the powermeter shows:

Charge Cycles: 367
Remaining capacity: 33.56 Wh
Full Charge Capacity: 37.65 Wh
Design Capacity: 48.84 Wh

One more thing started happening recently ... When the AC adaptor is plugged in the laptop *sometimes* makes a buzzing noise. It is louder than harddrive and CPU fan together and could be heard especially in a quiet room. As soon as I disconnect the power supply the buzzing stops. This started about a week ago.

I am happy to buy a new battery if it solves the problems. Certainly it sounds like a cheaper option than replacing anything on board. Please advise.

[lieven]

Hi everyone.
I'm having the same problem with my Vaio Z1M, that I've recently bought second hand on Ebay.
When charging the battery, it keeps switching between charging and not charging.
The battery can still keep a charge for about 1h 30, the problem is charging it.

I've tried to work on the adapter without the battery, but then it turns on the system lights and stops working.
After reading some other threads on other forums, I'm afraid it's not the battery, but some circuit board.
Wich is a costly thing to repair.

[jpat]

I think you didnt understand my problem. The lappy is just 15days old. The battery can stay up to 5 hours minimum when is fully charged, so i guess its not dead...the problem is that the trayicon of the windows doesnt switch from "(charging)", to "running on AC power" mode even if the battery reaches 100%. Despite that, the behaviour of the hardware led battery
indicator on the laptop's surface, acts normaly (it lits when the
laptop is running on battieries, it blinks when the battery is being charged, and it stays off when the battery reaches 100%).

Should i worry or not?
jpat

[kee-lo_]

Sounds like a simple reinstall of utils.exe will sort you out

[lieven]

I think you didnt understand my problem. The lappy is just 15days old. The battery can stay up to 5 hours minimum when is fully charged, so i guess its not dead...the problem is that the trayicon of the windows doesnt switch from "(charging)", to "running on AC power" mode even if the battery reaches 100%. Despite that, the behaviour of the hardware led battery
indicator on the laptop's surface, acts normaly (it lits when the 
laptop is running on battieries, it blinks when the battery is being charged, and it stays off when the battery reaches 100%).

Should i worry or not?
jpat

I think u posted this in the wrong topic.
The following link takes you to yours.
link

Back on topic.
Yesterday I had to recharge the battery because it was totally flat.
I let charge the whole night.
This evening I try to start up the laptop and after showing the windows logo it shuts down immediately and the Power led is blinking (low battery).
So now I can't even work with my laptop when I've connected the ac adaptor.

The weird thing is that it seems to keep on working when I'm just using the BIOS.
Could it be a software conflict?

Should I just reinstall windows although it's a clean installation?
Perhaps with a none Vaio CD so it won't install Vaio specific software?

[lieven]

The folowing link is a topic concerning this problem.
link

[rich912]

Hi lieven,

Have you tried removing the battery and running on AC power only? This should work, if not I would suspect that your AC adaptor is faulty.