Laptop battery won't charge.

Post date: 2020-10-23 15:01:55

My Lenovo Thinkpad Yoga 370 won't charge its battery! This is a used laptop, recently purchased off ebay. I tried a new battery to no avail. It works fine plugged in to AC, but immediately upon unplugging the computer turns off. Windows either says the battery is at 0% or 100%. Windows, tlp-stat and the Ubuntu Power Settings dialog all claim it's charging, but acpi says it is "charging at zero rate".

Some info that may be useful:

$ sudo tlp-stat -b
--- TLP 1.3.1 --------------------------------------------

+++ Battery Features: Charge Thresholds and Recalibrate
natacpi = active (data, thresholds)
tpacpi-bat = inactive (kernel module 'acpi_call' not installed)
tp-smapi = inactive (ThinkPad not supported)

+++ ThinkPad Battery Status: BAT0
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/manufacturer = SMP
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/model_name = 00HW027
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/cycle_count = 1
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/energy_full_design = 44000 mWh]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/energy_full = 43190 mWh]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/energy_now = 0 mWh]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/power_now = 0 mW]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/status = Charging

/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_start_threshold = 96 %]
/sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_stop_threshold = 100 %]

Charge = 0.0 %]
Capacity = 98.2 %]

+++ Recommendations
* Install acpi_call kernel module for ThinkPad battery recalibration

$ acpi -V
Battery 0: Charging, 0%, charging at zero rate - will never fully charge.
Battery 0: design capacity 3182 mAh, last full capacity 3123 mAh = 98%
Adapter 0: on-line
Thermal 0: ok, 42.0 degrees C
Thermal 0: trip point 0 switches to mode critical at temperature 128.0 degrees C
Cooling 0: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 1: intel_powerclamp no state information available
Cooling 2: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 3: pch_skylake no state information available
Cooling 4: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 5: x86_pkg_temp no state information available
Cooling 6: iwlwifi 0 of 19
Cooling 7: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 8: iwlwifi_1 no state information available

So far, no luck getting advice from the Ubuntu or Lenovo forums.

One of the common recommendations for charging problems on Lenovo laptops is to update the BIOS, but the BIOS update utility - both the one in Windows and the one on a bootable drive - require that the battery be fully charged. Are there any tricks that might circumvent this?

I'm becoming increasingly concerned that it may be a hardware issue - probably with the motherboard? If so, is there any possibility of confirming or fixing it?

Any idea what might be causing this, or how to go about fixing it? Anything else I should check, other information that might help with diagnosis?

Please click Here to read the full story.