Not positive this is the right place for battery Q's, but here goes. I'm looking for some help with my wife's old Gateway MX6027, which is having some battery problems.
Here is the backstory: A few months ago, her power cord started to go bad, flickering on and off, not charging the battery etc. We limped it along, but then her battery started not holding very much charge, and the red led on the front (low battery indicator I think) would not turn off. Once the battery lost all its charge, the laptop would shut off if you bumped the cord and momentarily lost connection. Then the computer started losing power even if the power cord was not bumped. We stashed the laptop for a few months until I got around to working on it.
I bought a new power cord and battery for the computer. But this has not solved the problem. When the battery first arrived, I believe it was at least somewhat charged, because I could run the computer without the power cord. I noticed that the battery monitor indicated that the battery had 0% power, but that it was "charged" when the AC was plugged in, not "charging."
I let the battery run down to see if I could charge it. Now if I plug the battery in, even if I am running on wall power, the computer shuts off after a few minutes. In fact, as soon as I plug in the battery, the screen dims and the tray icon switches from the power cord to the battery. It still tells me the battery has no charge. Leaving the battery in and the laptop plugged in while shut down does not charge the battery. The red led stays on, and when I turn it on it sometimes doesn't even make it past the BIOS.
Any ideas what is wrong? Could it be a problem with the motherboard? Charging circuit? Thanks.
Hi welcome wonderbadger, good to have you on board.
Good as place as any to post, sure does sound like the power jack socket on the mobo to me... all the pushing and pulling can create stress on the soldered pin connections, as you probably know solder is only lead and tin and is very soft and can tend to crack around the connecting pins causing this problem.
The correct way to test is to hold the dc jack while flexing the wire just where it goes into the molded plug... then another is to hold the same wire still and waggle the plug, this should point you in the right direction.
Connections can break in a way that it can become resistive... not connected and not dis-connected a dry joint as its known in the trade, this will cause a voltage drop when charging so it'll either charge, charge poorly or not charge at all, these sorts of problems usually yields a clue by becoming intermittent in the early stages.
Another problem could be the spring contacts have worn meaning a new socket as opposed to a re-solder.
When fitting these kind of dc power connector I always apply a dab of super glue on the pcb under the socket to relieve the socket of stress when plugging and unplugging in almost all equipment that comes my way that uses these connectors.
Sure does sound like the battery is not getting a charge, is it possible to give it a charge elsewhere because batteries can go 'wonky' by not holding a charge.
To pass a modest amount of current you need good connections otherwise the current is going to cause voltage drops, bad contacts or soldered joint won't help.
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