There are times when even having the laptop connected to the power outlet, you find that the battery does not charge . In this article we are going to tell you why this happens and what you can do about it, since it is certainly a rather uncomfortable situation if you need to take your laptop to use it later without being able to connect it to the power.
Almost everyone leaves their laptop always connected to the power outlet, and although it is not a good practice, nothing usually happens. If you have the laptop connected, what you expect is that when you disconnect it, it remains on because it has a battery for something, but sometimes there is the situation that as soon as you disconnect it, it turns off because the battery was not charged. When checking, you will notice that even when connected the laptop does not charge the battery. If this is your situation, let’s see what you can do about it.
What to do if the laptop battery does not charge while connected
The first thing to check is the most obvious: the wiring. Check that the connector to the laptop is well connected, but also check the cable that goes from the external power supply to the outlet, because it is this connector of the Schuko format that normally tends to make a bad contact, and it may be the first culprit of battery not charging.
If you have verified that everything is correct, there is a possibility that the power supply has been damaged (many have a status indicator LED to show whether it is working or not), but also that the cable is in bad condition, so If you have the possibility to change the cable, do it, since it never hurts to leave doubts.
The next point you should check is that the battery is making proper contact with the laptop, so turn it off, unplug it and remove the battery. If you can, take the opportunity to clean the contacts with an ear swab and rubbing alcohol, making sure that you remove all the dirt and that it is completely dry before you put the battery back in.
Taking advantage of the fact that you have disconnected everything, check that you are connecting the laptop’s charging cable to the correct port. You would be surprised by the number of computers that have connectors quite similar to USB or even minijack and without realizing it we connect them where it is not. Make sure at the same time that the connectors are also very clean, since if a lot of dirt has entered the laptop’s power port, it could cause it to not make good contact and therefore the battery does not charge.
If after all these physical checks the battery still does not charge, there is a possibility that it has been damaged, but before giving it up for dead we can do another check at the software level. The first thing you should do is access the Windows device manager (right click on the Start button -> Device Manager) and check if Windows detects the presence of the battery. It will appear under the batteries section.
If Windows does detect the battery, it is that it is well connected to the laptop, but since a laptop is considered an external device, it needs certain drivers, so the next thing you should do is reinstall them. To do this, right-click on the battery and select the option “Update driver”, and then follow a simple wizard that will update the drivers if there are any. It is possible that in your laptop, depending on the brand and model, there are several batteries. The one you need to update is the one called something like “Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery”.
Finally, if none of this has worked, you should try another power adapter, preferably the original of the brand.