Windows 7 causing battery problem with laptop I bought on ebay

mouthscradle

Hi

I'd appreciate if anybody could give me some advice on my situation, as I'm not sure what course of action to take right now.

I bought a second hand laptop from a local seller who owns a mobile phone type shop, on ebay at the end of June. The laptop was listed as used but in excellent condition. The operating system was Windows Vista, but the listing said it could be updated to Windows 7. I contacted the seller and asked him would he be able to upgrade it for me, and he said yes.

So I won the auction, and went to collect the laptop. When I got there, I paid the auction end price in cash, and the seller asked for another £20 for the Windows upgrade, saying he mentioned that when I asked. I later re-read the messages and he hadn't mentioned a fee for the upgrade so I wish I had refused to pay that! He showed me the laptop working, and all seemed ok so I left.

The laptop seemed to work ok later that day, I used it a little and there were no problems with battery life. However the problems started the next day. I had charged the laptop up and took it out with me to use at uni, as I'd just moved house and haven't had internet set up until yesterday. I was using the laptop for about 10 minutes when suddenly the battery died. Plugged it in and started it back up, and there was a message on the battery life icon saying "Consider replacing your battery".

To cut a long story short, since then the problem has rapidly escalated. I now can't use the laptop for more than about 4 minutes with it unplugged. Having researched the symptoms on the internet, it appears to be a problem with Windows 7, see here: Windows 7 and the battery error "consider replacing your battery" (Part 10). From what I can gather, it's a fairly widespread problem which alot of people are having but which Microsoft are denying and don't appear to be releasing any fix for.

I've tried a few of the solutions mentioned on the official Microsoft forums, but nothing has so far worked (for example see my post at the bottom of this topic Battery) and I have emailed the suggested address on this topic "Consider Replacing Your Battery" message.

I don't know what to do. Buying a new battery wouldn't help as lots of users have reported their new battery suffering from the same problem within weeks. I contacted the seller through ebay as soon as I was aware of the problem, he has suggested I just stick to Vista and then there won't be a problem. I've replied saying that I upgraded to Win 7 due to his listing saying that the laptop could be upgraded, and that the problem has been there since I received the item from him. He hasn't replied yet. I'm awaiting a reply from Microsoft but I'm not holding my breath. And Acer who are the manufacturer haven't released any updates for this laptop since it was manufactured, plus I have no original proof of purchase and it's out of warranty.

I really don't know what to do. I'm £280 down and am left with a good spec laptop but one which may aswell be a desktop pc as I can't use it unplugged

bingo_bango

One or two things.

This is a techie forum, and you state in your post that you have already exhausted all the avenues available for a fix, even quoting the MS forums. It's unlikely that you'll find a more knowledgable response here (although I realise there is a wealth of talent on here, so I can see why you thought of it).
I think as your actual question is related more to a consumer issue, it should be moved to the 'Consumer Rights' forum.

Also, As you have lifted the whole of the above post from the CAG forums, I think it would be fair to let people know that you have also posted there.

edit: This might sound a harsh response, but it's not intended in that way. It's just that you seem to be asking for consumer help more than techie help.

mouthscradle

Thanks You're right, I wasn't sure where to post it. Was torn between here, the Ebay board (as I'm not sure whether the ebay seller is at fault at all) or the Consumer Rights board.

I'm mostly looking for advice on what step to take next and who would be my best bet to get some recompense from, although I would much rather find a solution to the issue and am hoping somebody here will have experienced the same and found a fix!

Yes I've also posted on CAG forums as they've been useful to me in the past, and also on the Microsoft forum as mentioned before Thanks!

Richie-from-the-Boro

What does BatteryCare tell you about your battery status ?

You can read up here !

You can ask nicely if the seller will do you a swap-out of your battery, but its down to his good will, so try not to get snotty with him even though you have every right to be aggrieved.

If you know anyone who is into model cars / aeroplanes that use batteries he may well have the type of charger / discharger that can run tests on the battery and even perform the miracle of life on it.

Cycling a Li-ion back to health [ Li-ion prefers frequent shallow discharging ] can be done but not with a ten quid maplins unit.

Hope this helps !

bingo_bango

I'd post a link to this thead on the ebay board and ask for help with a SNAD item in it. I'm not very au fait with the ebay nuances, but soolin or someone would be able to advise you on time limits etc for making a claim. I know you need to move fairly quickly so best to start typing now!

Good luck with it, I had similar with a 'plugged in, not charging' scenario recently, but not a consumer issue unfortunately.

mouthscradle

Thanks Richie, when you mention bringing the battery back to life, do you mean something like flashing the firmware or whatever it's called? Someone mentioned that on the Microsoft forums as a possible fix but I didn't know if it would be expensive to have done/likely to work, so I haven't looked into it yet.

Battery Care shows my battery life dropping quickly when it's unplugged to about 90% and then it just drops to practically nothing and laptop shuts down. I've tried doing the calibration thing on it a couple of days ago and it had no effect. When I first installed Battery Care a couple of weeks ago, it showed a wear level of 30%, that has increased over that time and is now at 70%.

EDIT: Also, forgot to mention, when I disable the Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Battery Method in device manager, the battery will last around half an hour when unplugged before shutting off suddenly. When it's enabled, it lasts about 4 minutes.

Richie-from-the-Boro

mouthscradle wrote: »

Thanks Richie, when you mention bringing the battery back to life, do you mean something like flashing the firmware or whatever it's called? Someone mentioned that on the Microsoft forums as a possible fix but I didn't know if it would be expensive to have done/likely to work, so I haven't looked into it yet.

Battery Care shows my battery life dropping quickly when it's unplugged to about 90% and then it just drops to practically nothing and laptop shuts down. I've tried doing the calibration thing on it a couple of days ago and it had no effect. When I first installed Battery Care a couple of weeks ago, it showed a wear level of 30%, that has increased over that time and is now at 70%.

EDIT: Also, forgot to mention, when I disable the Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Battery Method in device manager, the battery will last around half an hour when unplugged before shutting off suddenly. When it's enabled, it lasts about 4 minutes.

No not firmware, your battery is goosed I think, and was in the first place. I know about the Win7 ACPI issue but there are 10 of thousands of other MOBO's working OK. Disabling it is the best you can do for now. I know little about firmware flashing of Li-ions.

The fact of the matter is that until you replace with a known to be good battery no one can objectively say who / what is at fault. The only other unpalatable option is to go back to Vista or earlier because the telemetry was not available in Windows Vista or Windows XP.

***

If going back to Vista gives an acceptable life span, this is objective is it not ? Conversely having gone back to Vista / XP if the life span does not substantially improve then the battery was indeed goosed in the first place. I've never done any tests so I really don't know.

***

I assume by firmware you mean battery firmware. All Li-ions talk to their parent about their overall health. For example if you have BatteryCare what / when was the ' last full charge capacity ' ?.

Bottom line, like it or lump it all the Windows parent is doing is reporting what the battery BIOS [ firmware ] is being told by its child.

I think you were sold a duff battery in that first instance.

__________

- Li-ion cells were / are notorious for lasting a couple of years maximum after manufacture, these days they last a little longer, but still not nearly as long as, NiCd / NiMH cells.

- When you buy what you think is a brand new battery it may well have been on a shelf for that same two or more years. A laptop for example may use the same older type batteries and the loss of capacity over a shockingly short period of time is a classic example of the use of these older type cells. Equally its possible that a brand new battery was assebled from cells that have been on the shelf for a few years.

- With fruit or meat we can to an extent, tell what is fresh and what is not, with batteries we have no idea even if we test them the minute we buy them. How many scammers make up batteries from cells they bought dirt cheap because they were ' out of date ' as it were ?

- The two extremes of heat & freezing kill Li-ion cells, freezing kills them dead but heat will reduce their life considerably quicker so the deserts of Arabia and a fishing trip to the South Pole are two areas where Li-ion's are going to fail very quickly. It would be a fair guesstimate that a Li-ion in dads drill is going to suffer from the two year morbidity failure, but we can expect a Li-ion in a Laptop to suffer that same morbidity failure in a very very much shorter period of time because of the way lappies are used as .. .. er ... .. laptop computers.

This missive may not help you with your problem but I hope it helps your understanding my friend.

Hammyman

BTW, that copy of Windows 7 WILL BE A PIRATED ONE. It costs £70 for the upgrade version so no way are they going to put a pukka one on for £20. Even if it does work, expect it to be killed in the very near future.

penrhyn

Hammyman wrote: »

BTW, that copy of Windows 7 WILL BE A PIRATED ONE. It costs £70 for the upgrade version so no way are they going to put a pukka one on for £20. Even if it does work, expect it to be killed in the very near future.

Thats what I was thinking, do you have an official Microsoft product key label for your windows 7? Or Disk even?

mouthscradle

I have the sticker on the bottom of the laptop with the license code for the Vista that it came with. Don't have one for Windows 7. I can see the license code that's running via System, it's an OEM license

mouthscradle

By the way, I installed a dual boot of Ubuntu last night as some people with the problem have said that switching to ubuntu has saved their battery. Well no such luck for me but ubuntu does have an interesting graph plotter thing for your battery function, the graph was amazing, I'll screenshot and post a link when I'm on the lappy next, posting this from my phone.

I think it's a case of once win 7 has messed with your battery, it's over. But switching to another OS can halt any damage. Unfortunately mine has gone beyond help. Depending how I get on with ubuntu I may buy a new battery and only ever boot to ubuntu when the new battery is in. I'm just really scared to buy a new one and the same thing happen cos it's money I can't afford. I'm a student and I spent money I'd saved over the last year to buy the laptop, it pains me to have to spend more through no fault of my own (nor the sellers).