laptop won't power on unless plugged in

**Pitt Stains** · March 20th, 2011

Well, the title pretty much says it all. My battery does hold a charge -- once I've started it, I can unplug the charger and use the laptop for a while, though I haven't tested it to see how long it holds the charge.

The laptop is gazu1. I'm wondering if this is the first sign of a battery ready to go. Anyone ever seen this before? Any ideas?

Thanks!
-Pitt

**isantop** · March 21st, 2011

How long does it take to charge the battery? It could potentially be the charger as well.

**Pitt Stains** · March 23rd, 2011

Originally Posted by isantop

How long does it take to charge the battery? It could potentially be the charger as well.

Ubuntu reports the battery is almost always at 99% or 100%. I almost never unplug it now, so it's probably always "charged."

**isantop** · March 23rd, 2011

Go ahead and boot the system up, then unplug it and test the discharge time. Also, once it's empty, charge it back up and see if that takes a particularly long time to do.

**Pitt Stains** · March 25th, 2011

When I unplug the machine, the screen brightness goes way down and I can't use my keyboard buttons (Fn + F9) to increase it -- I'm not sure if that additional information is at all useful to you. After 24 minutes unplugged, the laptop flicked off with no warning.

I plug it back in and boot up. The battery icon in the panel indicates the battery is charging, though it has always displayed "Laptop battery (estimating...)" instead of a percentage or an estimate of how many minutes until charged/discharged.

Aaaaaaaaaand it's now fully charged... or at least the battery charging icon is no longer in the panel. It took about 40 minutes.

Thoughts?

**isantop** · March 25th, 2011

It sounds like the battery is getting pretty old, as that system should last longer than 24 minutes on battery. I'd start with a new battery, available here:

http://www.system76.com/product_info...products_id=68