[SOLVED] Defective Battery

Arthurmeade12 · 2023-10-30 21:47:14

It has been many months now since my battery has stopped working entirely. My battery stopped working after I accidentally uninstalled Windows and wiped the EFI. In addition, KDE says that my battery's original charge capacity was 41.04 Wh and its last full charge was 42.51 Wh. Does this mean that my battery was overcharged? If so, can I rescue it or is it completely fried? I would provide logs if I knew which were helpful, but I don't.
Note: My system behaves like a system without a battery. When AC power is unplugged, the system immediately stops running.

Thanks for any help.

Last edited by Arthurmeade12 (2023-11-04 18:23:56)

ewaller · 2023-10-31 15:18:23

It is unlikely that the battery was overcharged. Modern battery controllers do a pretty good job. General information: Lithium chemistry batteries have a very flat voltage vs charge state curve. Unlike other chemistries, such as Lead acid, which fall of in voltage as state of charge decreases, Li-Ion and Li poly do not, [edit] so voltage cannot be used as a measure of charge state[/edit] . As such, modern battery controllers have "Coulomb counters", a Coulomb being a big number of electrons. To keep track of the state of charge, they literally integrate current (Coulombs/second) versus time. Sometimes these integrators drift. They way they get reset is to bump into one of the rails -- either fully charged or fully discharged. Once you hit one of those states, the counter can be recalibrated.

I'm sure your battery is dead. I'm also pretty sure that the Coulomb counter algorithm has collapsed as the charged and discharged states are essentially coincident.

Look around in /sys/class/power_supply. There should be a couple "directories" in there having to do with AC and BAT. I quoted directories because /sys is a virtual file system that is dynamically created by the kernel that represent the real time state of kernel parameters. There are "files" in the battery directory that contain real time information about your battery. These are system dependent, so yours will be different than mine. You can look at the contents of any of these files, but uevent often combines everything interesting. On my system, that is /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/uevent. Take a look at uevent and perhaps post it here. I am interested in the cycle count.

Last edited by ewaller (2023-10-31 16:31:49)

Arthurmeade12 · 2023-10-31 20:54:49

Thank you for your insight.
Contents of /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/uevent : (Cycle count 11)

POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=BAT0
POWER_SUPPLY_TYPE=Battery
POWER_SUPPLY_STATUS=Not charging
POWER_SUPPLY_PRESENT=1
POWER_SUPPLY_TECHNOLOGY=Li-ion
POWER_SUPPLY_CYCLE_COUNT=11
POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_MIN_DESIGN=11400000
POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_NOW=1234000
POWER_SUPPLY_ENERGY_FULL_DESIGN=41040000
POWER_SUPPLY_ENERGY_FULL=42510000
POWER_SUPPLY_ENERGY_NOW=0
POWER_SUPPLY_CAPACITY=0
POWER_SUPPLY_CAPACITY_LEVEL=Low
POWER_SUPPLY_MODEL_NAME=Primary
POWER_SUPPLY_MANUFACTURER=HP
POWER_SUPPLY_SERIAL_NUMBER=SerialNumber

Contents of /sys/class/power_supply/ADP1/uevent :

POWER_SUPPLY_NAME=ADP1
POWER_SUPPLY_TYPE=Mains
POWER_SUPPLY_ONLINE=1

edit:
Found another uevent file at /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/hwmon2/uevent , but it is empty.
edit 2:
Found another uevent file at /sys/class/power_supply/ADP1/hwmon0/uevent , but it is empty.

Last edited by Arthurmeade12 (2023-10-31 20:59:16)

seth · 2023-11-01 08:44:57

POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_MIN_DESIGN=11400000
                POWER_SUPPLY_VOLTAGE_NOW=1234000

POWER_SUPPLY_ENERGY_NOW=0
POWER_SUPPLY_CAPACITY=0

ewaller wrote:

Arthurmeade12 · 2023-11-01 12:12:08

So ... if it's dead how do I recharge it? Do I need to reset the 'Coulomb Counter' like ewaller said? Or do I need new a new battery to get a new counter?

seth · 2023-11-01 13:10:32

You cannot reset anything there.

The battery has very few cycles (11).
If you ballpark that to be plausible, what might have happened is that you let the battery completely drain and now it doesn't have the capcity to feed the internal electronics that are required to open the gates for charging it.

In that very case you can resurrect it by circumventing the charge electronics and applying current directly on the contacts, what means to hold the blank ends of two cables on 5, 12 or maybe 20V (check the battery, the DC input is usually printed on it) at the exposed contents - the battery is at this point outside the notebook.

This /can/ shock it back to life b/c there's now enough energy to allow it to respond to the charger and thus be re-charged.
An alternative outcome, depending on how stupid, clumsy or unlucky you go about that, is that you die (search youtube for what happens to damaged or overcharged Li-Ion batteries)

ewaller seems? to suggest that hitting rock bottom would implicitly allow recalibration what would require minimal charge to be allowed, but that doesn't seem to happen in your case my understanding was and is that the battery cannot be passively charged by regular power supply out of security precautions, b/c it's not known why the battery doesn't respond and so you /have/ to bypass that.

I've done such with low capacity and cheap batteries (never had a notebook battery in that condition) and am still alive (mostly) but you're of course operating the battery way outside its design here.
And the battery might have gotten fried for other reasons.

ewaller · 2023-11-01 14:08:48

Rock bottom as defined by the low voltage dropout of the control electronics where they prevent additional discharge to prevent damage, not to be confused with the point at which the battery is irrevocably damaged after having been over discharged. Seth is correct, that battery is dead, despite the low number of cycles. It is not taking a charge, despite the low number of cycles.
It is possible that there is a blown fuse or tripped circuit breaker meaning it would be "mostly dead", but I venture it has transpired "pinning for the fjords". The coulomb counter is integral to the control electronics and there is noting you can do to influence it in software. That counter is what is providing the Energy Now and Energy Full parameters.

Don't screw with the batteries. Batteries can store frightening amounts of energy and have no off switch. I once was trying to replace a cell in a Li-poly pack. Tried to drill out a plastic rivet. The drill slipped and a drill flute nicked the side of the battery; there was a subtle puff of smoke. I picked up the battery back and headed for the back door of my house. By the time I got there, the pack was uncomfortably hot. I got it to the center of the driveway before it burst into flames. I just let it burn out because I did not have a fire extinguisher anywhere close to the size required to suppress my little pile of stupidity, and I could not remember the ramification of putting water on a Li-poly inferno. I should look that up.

All of the HPs I have owned have externally removable batteries. My wife's does not, but it is not hard to replace. What model HP have you?

Edit: Li-ion and Li-poly contain very little Lithium and it is not in metallic form, the consensus seems to be that water on a li-poly or li-ion is okay. If a battery contains metallic Lithium, like a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery (LiFePO), water is bad. Water reacts with the lithium to produce hydrogen and oxygen in a violently exothermic reaction.

Last edited by ewaller (2023-11-01 14:17:25)

Trilby · 2023-11-01 14:27:22

seth wrote:

I've done such ... and am still alive (mostly)

This is seth by the way.

seth · 2023-11-01 14:52:29

I did not have a fire extinguisher anywhere

Shovel + "Quick! Which one of the flowers is the least valuable?"
Also, PSA for Americans: there're still manual drills

"Shocking" the battery to life does't typically involve causing physical damage (what is seriously dangerous) and 5V-20V isn't threatening a healthy adult either (5V won't even tickle) and applying it for a dozen seconds (what's typically sufficient) will hardly overcharge an otherwise intact battery.
But the gist is that there's potential for danger and if you're not feeling comfortable doing any of this, you simply don't.

@Trilby, more a rotting soul with abs, but the depiction is less offensive than in this garbage movie

Arthurmeade12 · 2023-11-01 19:32:43

ewaller wrote:

What model HP have you?.

I looked around /sys , but I didn't see anything obvious. KDE Settings told me this:
HP Laptop 15-dy2xx

seth wrote:

But the gist is that there's potential for danger and if you're not feeling comfortable doing any of this, you simply don't.

I don't feel comfortable doing this type of hardware job as I've never done anything like it before, and ewaller recommended against it:

ewaller wrote:

Don't screw with the batteries. Batteries can store frightening amounts of energy and have no off switch.

Not looking for something like this to happen:

ewaller wrote:

I got it to the center of the driveway before it burst into flames.

seth wrote:

Shovel + "Quick! Which one of the flowers is the least valuable?"

Arthurmeade12 · 2023-11-01 19:39:59

Also @seth this is the same issue as https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=281537 which you commented on quite a bit. The only difference is that I have had a working boot manager for quite some time now. I forgot about that previous issue, apologies.

Last edited by Arthurmeade12 (2023-11-01 19:40:25)

seth · 2023-11-01 20:24:30

The type of notebook is most likely printed onto it - usually way too prominently…

I'd say at this point we can pretty much rule out any kind of software issues and by this time it'd certainly be over-discharged, based on the state it was in back then.
You'll need a replacement (or ask an intern to "briefly hold those wires here while I'm … errrr… inspecting the fire extinguisher for no particular reason at all")

ewaller · 2023-11-01 20:40:34

I think these aftermarket batteries would work. Double check the form factor US$26 -> $30

https://www.amazon.com/HT03XL-15-da0014 … 631&sr=8-6

https://www.amazon.com/MYIYAE-HT03XL-L1 … F0aWM&th=1

The picture seems to imply it even includes a couple tools for the job.

Arthurmeade12 · 2023-11-03 02:16:49

Thanks to hoth of you for the help you have given me.
@ewaller Is there a way to discover the form factor without prying open the computer?

seth · 2023-11-03 07:35:22

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/HP+15-dy+B … ent/159392

And you'll need to know the exact model to check for the battery, https://parts.hp.com/hpparts/Default.aspx

Arthurmeade12 · 2023-11-04 18:23:28

Thank you for the help
I think I can follow the instructions Seth gave in the first link.

Arch Linux

#1 2023-10-30 21:47:14

[SOLVED] Defective Battery

#2 2023-10-31 15:18:23

Re: [SOLVED] Defective Battery

#3 2023-10-31 20:54:49

Re: [SOLVED] Defective Battery

#4 2023-11-01 08:44:57

Re: [SOLVED] Defective Battery

#5 2023-11-01 12:12:08

Re: [SOLVED] Defective Battery

#6 2023-11-01 13:10:32

Re: [SOLVED] Defective Battery

#7 2023-11-01 14:08:48

Re: [SOLVED] Defective Battery

#8 2023-11-01 14:27:22

Re: [SOLVED] Defective Battery

#9 2023-11-01 14:52:29

Re: [SOLVED] Defective Battery

#10 2023-11-01 19:32:43

Re: [SOLVED] Defective Battery

#11 2023-11-01 19:39:59

Re: [SOLVED] Defective Battery

#12 2023-11-01 20:24:30

Re: [SOLVED] Defective Battery

#13 2023-11-01 20:40:34

Re: [SOLVED] Defective Battery

#14 2023-11-03 02:16:49

Re: [SOLVED] Defective Battery

#15 2023-11-03 07:35:22

Re: [SOLVED] Defective Battery

#16 2023-11-04 18:23:28

Re: [SOLVED] Defective Battery

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