Laptop battery won't charge

[stevenamills]

I have a Toshiba Satelite A305-s6872 on the bench that refuses to recharge the battery. I have 2 batteries for it - One showing 0% and the other 32%. When plugged in and operating both say the battery is charging, but nothing happens. As long as I'm plugged in, everything runs great.

I upgraded the BIOS on the off chance that would help, but no luck.

I don't know the workings of a laptop as well as I should. Is there a "charging circuit" that may be bad or could the DC Jack supply power for everything but the battery?

I did try 2 different charging units also - same result.

Any place I should look or something I should try. I see a couple of people in my Google search with similar issues.

Thanks for any help.

[Cuban_Tech]

It may be that you need new batteries. Now on Lenovo laptops there's something called a "Battery Gauge Reset" that will work 75% to 80% of the time. It is part of the Power Manage app. from Lenovo. You may want to use Google to see if Toshiba offers something similar. Good luck!

[anonymous Mac Tech]

Does it run on battery alone with the battery that has some charge left?

[stevenamills]

Originally Posted by anonymous Mac Tech

Does it run on battery alone with the battery that has some charge left?

It does. Seemingly very normal.

[Skyhooker]

It sure might be a bad power jack. The nice thing about that one is it isn't soldered to the board (I never understood that idiotic design, shared by so many manufacturers), rather it has a wire harness from the jack to the board. Here's one on ebay, for example, for $17 + shipping:

A305-s6872 Power harness

Good luck!

Sorry, not sure why the "thumbs down" appeared in my reply - nothing personal!!

[anonymous Mac Tech]

Originally Posted by Skyhooker

The nice thing about that one is it isn't soldered to the board (I never understood that idiotic design, shared by so many manufacturers), rather it has a wire harness from the jack to the board.

That's what I like about Macs. They've done away with soldered jacks since way back with ending the titanium powerbooks.

EDIT: Sorry to hijack. A good way to test if its a separate circuit with a charging issue is if the machine will run with a known good battery, its likely a jack or mobo. IF it doesn't run on battery its likely its not a jack and there is a separate connection to the board for battery power.

[stevenamills]

Well, it looks like this one beat me. I'm out of ideas.

I tried a new battery and it runs fine on battery power, but no charge.

The icon in the lower light always says "plugged in and charging", but the % never moves.

I never could locate a "power manager" on the Toshiba site.

I replaced the DC power jack.

I hate these things to beat me.......

I removed the battery and charger from the device manager and it found them and reinstalled.

[usacvlr]

It's the MAXIM chip on the board. It's toast or has come loose.

[NYJimbo]

Originally Posted by usacvlr

It's the MAXIM chip on the board. It's toast or has come loose.

+1. Probably baked. Easy to spot too.

[stevenamills]

Originally Posted by usacvlr

It's the MAXIM chip on the board. It's toast or has come loose.

Thanks for taking the time.

Much appreciated.