g46vw dead internal battery questions

[RichardHead]

1) Does the g46vw require the battery to be connected and functional in order to boot? I get nothing when I try to power up with the known bad internal battery disconnected.

2) What voltages (with & without ac adapter connected) should I see on the battery terminal pins? I'm getting around 2V on the red ones with ac connected, and only a tiny voltage .01 on the white wire when no AC is applied.

All I can get is a slowly flashing power LED-- no fans or screen. Already tried the typical stuff: removing/reseating ram, ctrl-home-power, removed cmos battery, etc.

[Pandur]

I haven't tried with that exact laptop, but every laptop I've tried to boot without the battery has worked fine as long as you keep the charger connected (obviously).

[RichardHead]

That's been my experience too, and it's what makes me hesitate to drop $100 on a battery. Maybe someone with a G-series with an internal battery can confirm they are all like this. Nintendo DS are this way - they won't power on without a battery.

[Pandur]

I can say this much, my own G55VW and G53SX will boot and work fine without a battery. And if the battery is broken the laptop should still run fine on AC power.

[C4RN1]

I've got one that lives under my desk somewhere, tomorrow when I get home from work I'll find it and crack it open to test for you. It probably will run without the battery, I would suspect your motherboard has a power issue.

I will let you know tomorrow evening.

[RichardHead]

Thank you, that's awesome. I'll be sure to pay it forward.

[C4RN1]

So...



You should be able to see the battery wires on the side of the keyboard. The laptop powered up fine without the battery connected, though windows thinks the laptop still has a battery.

I would suspect you have either a power issue on the board or your power supply isn't within spec.

The power supply should be 19.5V, check it with a multimeter and see.

I would bet that if the battery was charged the laptop would power up.

Remember G46's use Optimus and it's very finicky, it takes about 18-20 secs for the machine to post.

Keep this in mind when troubleshooting.

Also keep in mind that the 40 pin cable that connects to the keyboard assembly is very fragile. Check the cable ends if you've recently removed the cable.

[RichardHead]

The client said he knew the battery had been going bad for a while because it was holding a charge for a decreasing amount of time. I guess he shouldn't have procrastinated getting it fixed. My best guess is somehow the motherboard wasn't protected from a dangerously low voltage from the battery, and that's what fried it. This client doesn't have a very good opinion of Asus now, and I can't say I blame him. However, I would never buy a laptop with a non-removable battery, just like I won't buy Apple products. I asked him how long he had it for warranty purposes, but he got it overseas or something while serving so he doesn't believe there is any warranty. To the scrap heap it goes!