Hi All,
I have a Acer Aspire 3003WLC for about a year now. Not a bad, simple laptop, but i have been having power problems recently. I have had to have the laptop repaired once already because the sound had stopped working and since I have got it back there has been problems with the power.

When i attempt to turn the laptop on, with just the battery, nothing happens! when i plug in the ac adapter (with green light on it) the charging light comes on, but i cannot still turn the system on. after a while (30min -> 1 hr) the system will turn on when i press the power button.

When windows loads it reports that the battery is almost full, if not at 100%. I am able to turn the power on and off and everything seems ok. then if i leave the laptop unplugged overnight and come back to it the next day, i cannot turn it on at all. same problem again!

Thanks,
-jimmy

Seems like a battery problem. Can you try turn on the laptop without the battery in.

Your problem, could be that, the battery cannot store another more charge, and self discharge too fast, that the voltage falls to zero. So, when you start to charge it, the charging circuit will use the failsafe method, a.k.a low current mode, in avoid a sudden surge of current which might heat up the battery and cause fire hazard. Taking out the battery will avoid this problem, provided your laptop allows powering up just from the adaptor alone(normally yes). If that works well, then you might wanna consider changing the battery. It's not recommended to run the laptop without the battery for a prolong period.

For an old battery, the indicator is always on the high side. The capacity of the battery degrades through time. So, it will give a false reading. You can try run the battery calibration, in the bios if you laptop have one. It will adjust the reading to fit the current capacity of the battery.

Good luck

If i try and boot the laptop without the battery nothing happens! the adapter is getting power (its green light is on) but the laptop shows no sign of powering up at all!

thanks for your help,
-jimmy

Then see if the same thing applies, wait 30min to 1 hour as before, with the adaptor in, but no battery, and then try to on again.

I would say order a new battery and adapter plug them in and see if it works, if it does then do the following:

Switch the new battery for the old and then keep the new adapter in, if it works there is a problem with the AC adapter

now Switch to the new battery but the old ac adapter, if that works its a battery problem,

Now if none of them work then there is a problem with your hardware and it would need to be check to make sure nothing got disconnected, or loose which could be the case when it got repaired the first time and they need to be fixed.

Hopefully its one of the two senario's that I mention early and you should be set.

I wonder if it could be an issue with the laptop's motherboard? I mean, waiting 30 minutes for it to just show signs of power is not normal at all.

Well like I mentioned in my previous post that if the above scenarios didn't work out it was a hardware issue, it is possible that there is something wrong with the motherboard but for being a year old I don't think it could be that. Another theory does come to mind is that the power supply within the laptop could be messed up and might get replaced. But like my hardware book says start with the obvious stuff and when the obvious doesn't work, bump it up the problems it could be (thats loosely translated).

i am hoping that it is not a problem with the motherboard as i only just recently had the unit repair (but maybe they could have damaged something when they were working on it). I will go and order a new battery and see what happens! i've been looking for an excuse to purchase a new battery - they are so expensive!

thanks
-jimmy

sounds like a faulty motherboard.

xboxrulz

I think you should confirm that the motherboard is 100% working, before you order your battery, else it will end up in the junk box,