Laptop shuts down with no warning when on battery

[martinlest]

My Asus X44H often shuts down (immediately) when unplugged, even though the battery monitor (Battery Bar Pro) I use shows that there is maybe 70%plus battery power left. It will run on battery OK for a while, then sometimes I get an audio warning that power is low, but often, as I say, not, the laptop just goes black.

The battery is now getting old, but before I buy a replacement, is this definitely a problem with the battery itself, or could there be some other issue here?

I don't have any problems when using a/c power..

Thanks

 

[cyclops]

Hello martinlest. I'm Brian. Definitely sounds like a shot battery. Will the laptop power back on after the blackout or does it do nothing? After it goes off, reattach the AC, boot up and see what percent the battery shows. I am having one of my old units do the same and the battery is 2 or 3 percent when I bring the laptop back up on AC. It'll charge to 100% after a couple of hours and repeat the same exact thing 30 minutes after I disconnect the AC.
Let Me know.

 

[Taplice]

Maybe there is nothing wrong with power management setting, did you checked it?

 

[martinlest]

Thanks for the comments.

The last time this happened, the battery was at 78% when I connected the mains and booted up. The power settings are supposed to give a warning - I use a small tool called Battery Bar which shows charge settings and so on. Sometimes I get a warning, other times not. No doubt I get no warning because, in spite of the laptop switching off in a fraction of a second, the battery still has plenty of charge.

The battery is the one that came with laptop, which is some four to five years old now, so perhaps I should replace it! On the other hand, I could just use the laptop on mains all the time (which is no great issue, I never use it away from the house).

 

[cyclops]

Hello again. Just for grins and giggles, clean all of the contacts on the battery and laptop connectors with cloth or cotton swab and alcohol, or if possible a pencil eraser. See if that makes a difference. Please let me know.

 

[martinlest]

Yes, I will do that and let you know. Thanks.

 

[martinlest]

I can clean the contacts on the laptop (they looked fine) but not on the battery as they are in deep, narrow slots.

The laptop still shuts down with no warning, even though the charge left is shown as over 70%. No, I cannot then restart it until I plug the machine in to the mains. Reckon I need a new battery.

 

[BorisTheAnimal]

Hi martin, have you checked what it says in Event Viewer -> Administrative Logs/Events?

It might not be the battery, it might be that there is a motherload of dust somewhere and it's causing hardware to overheat making the laptop to shutdown without you doing anything. Uhm would you be able to get a can of compressed air and clean it?

Kind regards

Boris

 

[martinlest]

Hi. Thanks - it's not running hot, I can feel that.from the case. I can spray in some compressed air though, yes.

Actually, I found I can start the laptop after it suddenly shuts down, but strange things happen - it basically crashes to a black screen, though the battery still shows plenty of charge.

I have ordered a new battery anyway, this one is over 5 years old and doesn't last long. I'll see how it goes with the new one.

Event Manager shows a number of errors, though which are relevant I couldn't say. Some seem strange (this laptop does not multiboot, for instance):

Session "Microsoft Security Client OOBE" stopped due to the following error: 0xC000000D

Event filter with query "SELECT * FROM __InstanceModificationEvent WITHIN 60 WHERE TargetInstance ISA "Win32_Processor" AND TargetInstance.LoadPercentage > 99" could not be reactivated in namespace "//./root/CIMV2" because of error 0x80041003. Events cannot be delivered through this filter until the problem is corrected.

And this:

The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.

But there is no information prior to this (i.e just prior to the sudden shutdown)..

As long as the laptop is plugged in to mains power, I never get these problems.

M.

 

[martinlest]

New battery solves the problem.. all OK now!