You plug in your laptop, see the charging icon appear, and leave it for a while but come back to an unmoved battery icon. Laptops which don’t charge properly are something we see a lot of – its also one of the most annoying reasons for a device being out of order. Here are some of the possible causes of a non-charging laptop….
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Start with the obvious
It always worth ruling out the simpler possible causes first, even if it reveals a easy oversight (which we all make).
- The electricity socket. Plug something else into the same socket — a lamp or a phone charger, for instance — to confirm it is actually supplying power. Sometimes, sockets fail for no obvious reason, so its worth checking if this is one of the occasions.
- Check the cable and adapter. Have a look at the cables to check for bends, kinks or other damage. Also check if the charging pack feels unusually warm to the touch. If a colleague or friend has the same laptop, it’s worth borrowing their charger to test on you laptop.
- The charging port on your laptop. Dust and other debris find their way to charging ports! A close look with a torch will quickly reveal a clogged port – if you have a compressed air can, blasting some air in might even clear the blockage.
- The connection itself. Unplug and reconnect both ends firmly. USB-C connections in particular can appear seated when they have not, in fact, clicked fully into place.
In our experience….
In our experience, cable and port problems are often the cause of a non-charging laptop – these are all issues which you may be able to identify without our help. Have a try yourself and if you get stuck or suspect that the problem is internal, give us a call on 0203 518 0814.
Software can also affect charging
If the cables and ports appear to be fine, the problem may not be physical at all:
- Driver issues. On Windows machines, an outdated or corrupted battery driver can cause the system to report charging status incorrectly. Uninstalling the battery driver via Device Manager and allowing Windows to reinstall it upon restart can often resolve the problem.
- A stuck power management state. Occasionally, the laptop’s internal power controller becomes lodged in an unhelpful state. A full shutdown and restart — rather than sleep mode —can sometimes reset it.
- Battery calibration drift. Over time, a laptop’s estimate of its own battery capacity can become inaccurate
If you suspect a software issue is to blame for the charging problem, give PC Mac Fix a call on 0203 518 0814and we’ll get to the bottom of the problem quickly
When it is a hardware fault
Most PC Mac Fix customers don’t want to open their machines up or even think about it’s internal components, but if you’ve checked sockets, cables, and tried software resets without success, the fault is likely to be internal:
- Battery wear. Batteries degrade with every charge cycle. After a few years, a battery may struggle to hold charge reliably, or the laptop may refuse to charge beyond a certain percentage as a protective measure. To protect your battery, try and keep its charge within a range of 20-80% full.
- A failing charging port. Ports wear out physically after thousands of insertions, particularly if cables are routinely inserted at an angle. A typical symptom of this would be a laptop which only charges by wiggling the cable/connector.
- Motherboard or power circuit failure. This is less common than the above, but the power delivery components on the motherboard can fail, especially following a power surge or exposure to liquid.
- Third-party or damaged chargers. Chargers that do not match the laptop’s required wattage or voltage may fail to charge it properly. In some cases, laptops will refuse to accept a charge from an adapter they do not recognise as safe.
A few quick diagnostic checks
- Check whether it charges while switched off. If the laptop charges when powered down but not while running, it may be the case that the charger isn’t able to supply enough power to meet the laptop’s needs.
- Watch the charging light. Many laptops have an LED on the charging port or the adapter itself. A blinking or unusually coloured light, rather than a steady one, often points to a fault.
- Try Safe Mode. If the laptop charges in Safe Mode but not during a normal mode, a background application or driver is likely to be causing the issue.
When to seek help from PC Mac Fix
If you’ve checked the cables, sockets and ports and done what you can to check the possible software-related causes of a non-charging laptop, it may well be time to consider a battery replacement. Particularly if the laptop is more than two or three years old. Batteries are, by design, components which have a limited life. As discussed above, an ageing laptop can also bring software or other hardware problems, so if you checked the obvious possible causes, give us a call on 0203 518 0814 and we’ll quickly identify and fix the problem.
