Just recently I have run into a small (but a little troubling) problem with my battery on my IBM T42. I usually run my computer from the plugged in status and the battery meter on the computer will pretty much always read 100% capacity. Yesterday I unplugged my computer and ran it without a charge and the battery dropped down to 22% capacity. I left the computer plugged in over night and all of today and yet the battery still reads at 22% battery capacity. Is this a overheating problem or some other sort of problem? I am really not that good with computers and came across this site figuring someone might be able to help me, well thanks for reading.

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Just recently I have run into a small (but a little troubling) problem with my battery on my IBM T42. I usually run my computer from the plugged in status and the battery meter on the computer will pretty much always read 100% capacity. Yesterday I unplugged my computer and ran it without a charge and the battery dropped down to 22% capacity. I left the computer plugged in over night and all of today and yet the battery still reads at 22% battery capacity. Is this a overheating problem or some other sort of problem? I am really not that good with computers and came across this site figuring someone might be able to help me, well thanks for reading.

no your problem is the battery itself. The problem could arise from two causes. 1 the battery is pretty much dead and needs replacing, or 2 it just needs a discharge. Lets try option 2 before buying a new battery. Let me explain something, laptop batteries are not happy when they are always running on ac and never used. They forget how much charge they hold and it goes bad. That is why laptop manufacturers say you should take your laptop off of ac once a month (atleast) and fully discharge the battery till it is dead and then charge it up fully again. This will add lots of battery life to your battery. What you might be able to do is run your battery competly down till it shuts itself off. And then charge it up for a night and try it again. If its no good then you need a new battery. We have had brand new batteries in the shop just sit for several months and when we go to use them they dont work because of this! They need to be used often! Hope this helps some, and hopefully you wont need to buy a new battery. They are expensive!

Thanks for the quick reply that sounds easy enough for me to understand, I'll try it after work today to see how plan two works out. :)

Thanks for the quick reply that sounds easy enough for me to understand, I'll try it after work today to see how plan two works out. :)

Yep no problem! thats what were all here for :) and btw, Welcome to daniweb!

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