On 11/10/2024 10:30, Terry Coles wrote:
However, I'm going to keep an eye on the battery state while leaving the laptop running today and then perhaps it will yield more info.
I ran the machine all day yesterday, and it never threatened shutdown once. I have a little more info, but no solutions. Going back to the upower -i output that I posted a few days ago, there is little change except that the Voltage readout is reducing slowly; on Friday afternoon it read 4.368 V, and yesterday afternoon is read 4.205 V. This morning when I looked at the stats, the Voltage had risen again to 4.363 V, but it is slowly falling again. Interestingly, the Energy value remains constant, as does the percentage charge. Looking at all of the data, I interpret that as a nearly new battery (Capacity 100%), and it is not charging and is only discharging very slowly, (hopefully to deliver power to the BIOS Battery, time will tell). I still can't be 100% certain that the fault lies in the Motherboard, but I would put it as more likely because the battery is behaving as a functioning battery would when it is never charged. It's possible that the battery electronics are all working perfectly, but the battery cells are unable to accept power, but I think that's unlikely when you consider that the guy at Rapid PCs would have removed the battery before he started hacking around with his solder reflow machine to repair the connections to the (supposedly faulty) memory chips. The problem is that I have found it very difficult to get a quotation for motherboard replacement, because (fairly reasonably I suppose) the repair shops all say they need to get the motherboard out to identify it. I have asked them to give me a ball park figure, but have had no joy (presumably because once they've got me through the door, it will be easier to prevent me walking away). What really annoys me about all this is the lack of detailed documentation available. It ought to be possible to identify the motherboard on the Dell website, but they don't even sell a replacement. That means that the aftermarket is the only source, and I've seen them advertised at anything from £39.99 to £549! -- Terry Coles -- Next meeting: Online, Jitsi, Tuesday, 2024-10-01 20:00 Check to whom you are replying Meetings, mailing list, IRC, ... https://dorset.lug.org.uk New thread, don't hijack: mailto:dorset@mailman.lug.org.uk
