Laptop Battery Problem

[Scott]

I bought a new battery for my 3-year old Gateway M320S WinXP Pro laptop.
Two of the last three times, when it got down to 15% battery remaining,
the computer shut down abruptly. When I booted up and plugged in the
external power, the battery stayed at 0% for several minutes, and then
began charging. Could this be a defective battery?

Thanks!
Scott

 

[Leonard Grey]

Is this a question about Windows XP, Scott?

 

[Scott]

Is this a question about Windows XP, Scott?

Leonard,

Well, not directly. Can you suggest a better newsgroup?

Scott

 

[David B.]

The Gateway support site would be a good place to start, or the people you
bought the battery from.

 

[Leonard Grey]

https://support.gateway.com/support/contact/contact_tech1.shtml

 

[philo]

I bought a new battery for my 3-year old Gateway M320S WinXP Pro laptop.
Two of the last three times, when it got down to 15% battery remaining,
the computer shut down abruptly. When I booted up and plugged in the
external power, the battery stayed at 0% for several minutes, and then
began charging. Could this be a defective battery?

Thanks!
Scott

It could be normal.

When your machine was new , how did it react?

 

[Scott]

It could be normal.

When your machine was new , how did it react?

When it was new, it always got down to 5% before shutting off, just as I had
set it. Today, the battery got to 50%, and the computer just quit. No shutdown.

Scott

 

[David B.]

Again, call the people you got the battery from, that is obviously not
normal.

 

[Twayne]

Possibly. Have you checked the battery settings in Control Panel |
Power Options? Gateways usually let you set the lower level trigger for
the battery condition and the action to take when it reaches that stage.
It could be set to 50%, and then anything from Shut Down to Hibernate to
go into Standby. Even if you didn't change them yourself, things can
happen to change them.

Regards,

Twayne

 

[philo]

Possibly. Have you checked the battery settings in Control Panel |
Power Options? Gateways usually let you set the lower level trigger for
the battery condition and the action to take when it reaches that stage.
It could be set to 50%, and then anything from Shut Down to Hibernate to
go into Standby. Even if you didn't change them yourself, things can
happen to change them.

Regards,

Twayne

Good observation!

Definitely worth looking into