Laptop battery question

[Parrothead]

I have a ~6 year old HP Pavillion dv6000, and the battery is going. I'm at 28% plugged in right now, and it's been going down for a while. ( August I maxed out at 48%).

My question is: will it run if the battery is dead, but it's plugged in, or do I need to find a new battery?

[RichS]

Yes, it will - I have a 7-year old laptop I've neglected to get a new battery for, and it works plugged in.

Eventually, though, I plan on a new battery for it, just can't afford it right now.

[Daskinor]

Most of the time yes, but you can run into some weirdness if the computer is really working hard and the charger is 65watts or less.

[Amadan]

You could always discharge the battery completely and then charge it overnight a couple of times and see if you get a bit more life out of it.

Eventually though batteries die. You shouldn't run into issues using the machine without one in (except pulling the power plug will kill the machine) although occasionally I've seen issues with leaving completely dead batteries in machines.

[Chromatix]

Easy way to check: remove the battery and make sure it still works then. Best to try this from a cold boot, then try running Prime95 as a way to stress it.

Incidentally, you can run a Linux LiveCD if you don't want to risk a hard shutdown under Windows while testing. There is even a minimalist Linux distro designed specifically for this: StressLinux.

[Lyse]

I had an HP Pavilion laptop that ended up with battery issues - after several years it decided that it wouldn't work at all if I had the battery in! Ended up having to run it on the power cord for a few months until my tax return came in and I could get a new laptop.

[Arcus]

The DV6000 is one of the laptops that I rebuild to bring in a little extra cash. A 6 year old battery going dead isn't a surprise. They don't last forever. The good news is that unless you have a motherboard problem, you can just pull it out and run the laptop without it.

It's better to pull a dead battery out so the computer isn't always trying to charge it. That puts a strain on the power pack and the charging system. It's cheaper to replace a battery then it is to replace a motherboard that burned out trying to charge a worn out battery.

[Parrothead]

Ok.



....So how do I take the battery out? I'm kinda a luddite.

[Arcus]

Flip the laptop over and near the back you'll see the battery (it's the long rectangle along the back edge.) You'll see what looks like a slide switch with a small battery symbol one one side. Just slide that all the way to the other side and the battery will pop out. It will get a little hard to move just before the the battery pops out.

[TheSHAD0W]

Just make sure the laptop is shut down and the power cord is unplugged before installing/removing any batteries.

[Parrothead]

...oops. It still works, though.