[SOLVED] battery isn't charging and notebook doesn't work without cable

[_mieltn]

Hey everyboy!
My battery doesn't work well. In the beginning, it started to discharge enormously quick, but now the notebook doesn't turn on without charging cable plugged in. When you place the mouse on battery icon it says "0% available (plugged in)". Then some time passed I understood that it's not charging at all (the percentage doesn't change and the device turns of very soon after unplugging the cable). If you click on the battery icon, there will be no information whether it's charging or not. The animation of battery icon (when it's being fullfilled again and again) also doesn't show up.
The problem seems very common, but I've tried some regular methods, that you can find in the web about it:

• reinstalled battery drivers by uninstalling them in device manager and restarting the notebook
• tried to launch windows power troubleshoot (didn't reveal anything)
• cleaned the contacts where the battery connects to the whole system (also nothing changed) and checked the battery for some external consequences of being dead (like some blisters/bubbles on its surface; found nothing).

I didn't try to update BIOS driver and pretty sure it's fine (I'd do this only if someone higly recommended it).
My norebook model is Asus Zenbook UX31-LA . I've been using it a bit more than 3 years. All I'm trying to figure out whether I just need to buy a new battery or the problem may be connected with some kind of OS-problems or anything else not requiring battery replacement.
Thanks in advance.

 

[kerberos_20]

battery in your notebook is rated for 300~500 charge cycles (around 1~2 years daily charging)
i guess its dead already, so only way to fix it is to buy new battery

original battery 99.90$
compatible battery from Amazon 43.99$

 

[geofelt]

Laptop batteries do not last forever.
I would conclude that it is dead and needs replacing.

To avoid problems, buy an original battery, not a cheaper "compatible" battery.
Sometimes, there is proprietary circuitry in the original battery that is not fully compatible.

 

[Solandri]

battery in your notebook is rated for 300~500 charge cycles (around 1~2 years daily charging)
i guess its dead already, so only way to fix it is to buy new battery

Agreed this sounds like a dead battery. However, 300-500 charge cycles is a bit oversimplified.

Li-ion batteries don't react well to being fully charged or fully discharged. If you charge it to 100% or discharge it to 0%, it'll only last 300-500 such events (leaving it on AC and having it top off to 100% every time it drops to 99% also counts). If you keep it between 20%-80%, it's not uncommon for them to last 1500 cycles or more.
https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

Newer laptops come with utilities which let you manually limit the max charge to a certain percentage - usually 80%. Some laptops bake this into the firmware by misreporting the battery capacity to Windows. e.g. The battery is labeled as 54,000 mAh, but Windows reports it's a 48,000 mAh battery (89% its actual capacity). That guarantees that Windows won't charge it past 89%. EVs do this too - they all limit their charge state to between 20%-80%, or 15%-85%. That's how Tesla was able to send out an update during hurricane evacuation to increase the range - they just changed the minimum allowable charge state (after which the EV refuses to move) from 15% to 5%.

So after you install a new battery or buy a new laptop, look for a utility or setting which will let you limit the battery's max charge state. Top it to 100% only the few times when you absolutely need maximum battery life. If the laptop doesn't have this capability, you can fake it by taking it off the charger when it reaches about 70%-80%, then using it on battery until it hits about 20%-30% before putting it back on the charger. But as you can imagine this is a lot more tedious.

 

[_mieltn]

Thank you all! Seems like it'll be better to buy a new one..