Plugged in, not charging.

Hey everyone,

I have had my Lenovo Z580 for little over a week and I have been greeted with the well known plugged in, not charging message. I have had this issue on previous laptops that I have owned. However, this problem is slightly different.

Let me begin by explaining how this problem began. I was on my laptop a few nights ago and the battery was being charged and I was quite tired so I decided to shut down the laptop and go to bed. The laptop was charged to around 95% and I thought I would continue to charge it the next day. The next day I put the charger in and soon realised it wasn't charging. I tried all the usual methods of removing the battery, uninstalling the battery from device manager and so on. These methods did not work. So, I went ahead and let the battery drop to around 4%. When letting the battery drop to this level I won't receive the plugged in, not charging message. However, if my battery is at a point between 95/90% and around 15% I will receive the plugged in, not charging message. However, this is where I am confused. If I click the battery icon it will begin charging the battery.

So, it is my understanding there must be some sort of setting somewhere that causes my battery to charge upon the battery icon being clicked.

Has anyone heard of such problem before? and if so, how do I go around sorting such problem?

Thank you everyone.

Wow really new and weird. What battery plan is it on?

Skylais said:

Wow really new and weird. What battery plan is it on?

It is on high performance but the problem persists on all of the battery plans. It does charge but I am just wary of the whole fact I have to click the battery icon to kick start the charging process.

In start search "Device manager" Then once there find "Microsoft ACPI-compliant control method battery". Select it then right click and press uninstall. It should then quickly refresh device manager and you will no longer see "Microsoft ACPI-compliant control method battery". Also the battery icon on the taskbar will be missing. Now while in device manager Click Action and then scan for hardware changes. It will again refresh device manager. Battery icon should come back on and you should now see Microsoft ACPI-compliant control method battery back in device manager. This may fix your problem.
Post back with results.

Skylais said:

In start search "Device manager" Then once there find "Microsoft ACPI-compliant control method battery". Select it then right click and press uninstall. It should then quickly refresh device manager and you will no longer see "Microsoft ACPI-compliant control method battery". Also the battery icon on the taskbar will be missing. Now while in device manager Click Action and then scan for hardware changes. It will again refresh device manager. Battery icon should come back on and you should now see Microsoft ACPI-compliant control method battery back in device manager. This may fix your problem.
Post back with results.

Thank you.

I've tried this many times but I went ahead and tried it again however it made no difference.

Also, I find that charging will start begin around 8-12 seconds after plugging in the AC adapter. However, this will only happen if the battery level is between the earlier mentioned percentages.

On page 15 of this pdf (http://www.lenovo.com/shop/americas/...z585_ug_en.pdf) for that computer it states "To increase the life of the battery pack, the computer does not start recharging the
battery immediately after it drops from fully charged" Although i doubt it would wait for it to get so low.
Also please install the driver from the link below, it is the power management driver for your computer. "http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?DocID=DS028645"

logicearth said:

Grrrr...how many times do I have to say it. WINDOWS DOES NOT CONTROL THE BATTERY! Only the hardware is capable of doing that. The only access Windows has is read-only. The built in circuitry for the battery handles all of its functions, charging and discharging neither is controlled by Windows. Uninstalling the ACPI drive in device manager only causes issues down the line.

There are only a few causes to this problem. Faulty hardware, the motherboard is damaged in some way or its firmware that handles the communication between the battery and motherboard. Battery is faulty, Is very possible even for new batteries. Malfunctioning system specific motherboard driver is faulty. If the motherboard uses a non-ACPI method of communicating the the OS it needs a driver tailored for it, this can be a fault. Or you could have malware interfering with the system.

But I will say it again, Windows does not control the battery it only reports the information the hardware tells it. Windows does not second guess the information it receives. If this is a new computer, TALK TO THE MANUFACTURER!

Sorry friend. I am not as experienced as you, and i was just trying to help. I told him to do the above because my pc does something similar and usually reinstalling that driver fixes it and the battery is read right. Nonetheless im sure your correct, so sorry for misleading information. I also agree if the computer is new talk to the manufacturer.

Thank you for the information Skylais, I read over my Lenovo information pack and seen that it states that the battery does not charge the battery straight away (maybe this is why I have to click the battery icon to start the charging process and that it starts charging below the point at which I receive the low battery notification). I'm guessing this is just to benefit battery life as stated.

Thank you again.

OphionLuteus said:

Thank you for the information Skylais, I read over my Lenovo information pack and seen that it states that the battery does not charge the battery straight away (maybe this is why I have to click the battery icon to start the charging process and that it starts charging below the point at which I receive the low battery notification). I'm guessing this is just to benefit battery life as stated.

Thank you again.

Sure thing:) there is probably a setting where this could be disabled, temporarily stopped, or even set to charge at a higher percent. Not quite sure though you could probably find some more information on this by calling them. Also if you feel as your problem is solved please mark this thread as solved. If you are satisfied with me or any other here you can give us reputation, by click the scale looking icon in the right corner of this post or any other:) if you need more assistance, just ask :)