# Cannot calibrate battery. Laptop shuts down.



## AntiRellik (Feb 26, 2008)

Hello people,
It's been about 2 weeks I've been having problems with my battery. I have an HP Pavilion G7 (1.5 yrs old). The laptop shuts off without any notification at all. I tried manually calibrating the battery like twice, with no success. Durability is very poor, it used to last a lot (about 3 hours with normal use) and then all of a sudden one day just shuts off without notification and it's been like that ever since. It's holding less charge as the days pass by. Sometimes it reaches 97% and it says "Plugged in, not charging". Some days it charges but the battery LED flashes.
The laptop shuts down when the battery is at around 20-30%. One time it shut down so I immediately plugged it and turned it back on. Battery was at 32%. Other times that has happened battery was at 22%, 27%.

I've also modified the critical battery level so it hibernates at around 20%. That worked for a day or two, now it just shuts off. Also, when I turned it back on, it would display a message saying the laptop shut down because battery reached it's critical level... That message NEVER appeared before. If the laptop would run out of battery it would hibernate but when turning it back on it would resume automatically without prompting for any "continue with system resume" or "battery reached critical level" notifications.

I'm wondering if the battery is officially done for or if I suck at calibrating. There's no calibrate option in the BIOS either.
Right now, with normal use, battery lasts luckily an hour... Just now it dropped to 50% with only 31 minutes of use.
Anything would be helpful at this point. Thank you!


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## AntiRellik (Feb 26, 2008)

Also, I've noticed that sometimes the battery charges way too fast. (Couldn't edit my previous post, sorry).


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## sobeit (Nov 11, 2007)

what is the full model number of the laptop. you only gave the series.


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## VividProfessional (Apr 29, 2009)

Hi,
At 1.5yrs old the battery is likely to need replacing particulary if you have part charged it in the past. (aka from 35% to somehting like 66%).
You can try what I do with mine and that is to boot it up until windows wont stay up for five mins, then boot it up into the BIOS. allow the mahcine to sit at the bios screen until it cant even support that. then remove the battery for 10minutes. the put the battery back in and connect your charger. - do not turn it on. leave it charging like this for 12+ (ideally 16 hours), and then use it until it wont power on again. again charge it in the same way for 12-16 hours. this solved the issue on my probook 4330s


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## Stancestans (Apr 26, 2009)

Dave Cummings said:


> Hi,
> At 1.5yrs old the battery is likely to need replacing particulary if you have part charged it in the past. (aka from 35% to somehting like 66%).
> You can try what I do with mine and that is to boot it up until windows wont stay up for five mins, then boot it up into the BIOS. allow the mahcine to sit at the bios screen until it cant even support that. then remove the battery for 10minutes. the put the battery back in and connect your charger. - do not turn it on. leave it charging like this for 12+ (ideally 16 hours), and then use it until it wont power on again. again charge it in the same way for 12-16 hours. this solved the issue on my probook 4330s


Hmmm interesting, I'm gonna try this out on my HP 620. It's behaving exactly like the OP's, but I often assumed I needed to simply replace it. I have everything to gain if this let's me squeeze more service out of it and nothing to lose by trying this out. Will post back how it goes.

OP, it's your call whether you wish to try this out or not. It's just a lucky fluke, might or might not improve the situation.


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## VividProfessional (Apr 29, 2009)

Funnily enough my laptops doing it again today, the event i mentioned above was about 6 months ago. I am going to try this today and over the weekend. I will let you know how I get on!


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## Stancestans (Apr 26, 2009)

Dave Cummings said:


> Funnily enough my laptops doing it again today, the event i mentioned above was about 6 months ago. I am going to try this today and over the weekend. I will let you know how I get on!


Hehehe, couldn't have happened at a better time! :lol:


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## AntiRellik (Feb 26, 2008)

Dave Cummings said:


> Hi,
> At 1.5yrs old the battery is likely to need replacing particulary if you have part charged it in the past. (aka from 35% to somehting like 66%).
> You can try what I do with mine and that is to boot it up until windows wont stay up for five mins, then boot it up into the BIOS. allow the mahcine to sit at the bios screen until it cant even support that. then remove the battery for 10minutes. the put the battery back in and connect your charger. - do not turn it on. leave it charging like this for 12+ (ideally 16 hours), and then use it until it wont power on again. again charge it in the same way for 12-16 hours. this solved the issue on my probook 4330s


I wouldn't do this as completely decharging the battery can kill it. Either way, at this rate I'm off trying out anything. :ermm:


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## SA Spurs1 (May 2, 2009)

I believe it is time to replace the battery.


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## BIGBEARJEDI (Aug 8, 2012)

If completely de-charging the Battery kills the Battery; that means it has a shorted or dead cell in it. I've de-charged HUNDREDS of laptop batteries over the years, and never "killed" one yet!! 

BIGBEARJED


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## VividProfessional (Apr 29, 2009)

well as an update this has worked for me - again


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## AntiRellik (Feb 26, 2008)

yeah, I tried it once but it didn't solve the issue. I wish I had a calibration option in the BIOS.

The day before yesterday I let it shut down and I booted the laptop a while later. Battery was really low. Either way, what was strange is that I was able to use it for about 30 minutes while the thing said that battery was at 0%.
It HAS to be a calibration problem, otherwise why would it do that?


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## BIGBEARJEDI (Aug 8, 2012)

AntiRellik said:


> yeah, I tried it once but it didn't solve the issue. I wish I had a calibration option in the BIOS.
> 
> The day before yesterday I let it shut down and I booted the laptop a while later. Battery was really low. Either way, what was strange is that I was able to use it for about 30 minutes while the thing said that battery was at 0%.
> It HAS to be a calibration problem, otherwise why would it do that?


 
*>>>Hi again, Anti: Perhaps you are not familiar with the "MEMORY EFFECT" that affects all batteries, and specifically laptop batteries or any batteries that hook up to a charging circuit such as your Automobile battery. Read about it here: **https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_effect*

*So, the deal is you have a bad battery, just as I said before. Others have given you a work around, but yet you still question why yours doesn't work. You can do whatever you want of course, since you came here looking for answers you have one; and from people who repair laptops for a living such as myself. Buy a new one or not; but you are not going to fix the one you have. If not, you'll wind up making your laptop work like a prisoner with one of those electronic house-arrest ankle-bracelets; chained forever to your desk with an AC Charger, never to use again for more than a few brief minutes...until 1 day when you go to turn on your laptop from the battery--you will get a Black Screen! :nonono: Your battery will be completely drained. And, just a like a car battery that's dead; it won't take a charge, and thus won't start your car, so you better start walkin'. <<<*

*BBJ*


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## roodap (Mar 2, 2012)

BatteryCare
gives more info about batteries.
i have read somewhere the memory effect is for lead-acid batteries, nickel-cadmium batteries
i am not sure about it.
battery university says so and gives more informatios abou all batteries.
try to read all articles there.


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