Acer 5740 (from OfficeMax) battery problem

[steveg66]

Good afternoon,

Hope you all are doing well. I'm new here, although, I have been lurking for a while.

I purchased the Aspire 5740-5513 from OfficeMax. It has the I3 processor, 320 gb and 4 gb DDR3. Thought I bought a nice machine, at least until today.

The battery will not charge while the notebook is plugged into the wall. The research that I've done is that it appears this model has been offered in Europe and Austailia, I cant find anyone other than OM in the US that offers this model.

Is my battery dead? Is there something else wrong? Is it something that I did?

I've tried to limit the amount of cycles of the battery, I have been reading about that here, by pulling the battery out while plugged in.

Is the power requirements in Austrailia and Europe different thus affecting my battery?

BTW-I've had it for 10 days.

I have contacted Acer and will contact OfficeMax (tomorrow) to see what they can do.

Any help would be appreciated,

Thanks for your help,
Steve

[weinter]

Good afternoon,

Hope you all are doing well. I'm new here, although, I have been lurking for a while.

I purchased the Aspire 5740-5513 from OfficeMax. It has the I3 processor, 320 gb and 4 gb DDR3. Thought I bought a nice machine, at least until today.

The battery will not charge while the notebook is plugged into the wall. The research that I've done is that it appears this model has been offered in Europe and Austailia, I cant find anyone other than OM in the US that offers this model.

Is my battery dead? Is there something else wrong? Is it something that I did?

I've tried to limit the amount of cycles of the battery, I have been reading about that here, by pulling the battery out while plugged in.

Is the power requirements in Austrailia and Europe different thus affecting my battery?

BTW-I've had it for 10 days.

I have contacted Acer and will contact OfficeMax (tomorrow) to see what they can do.

Any help would be appreciated,

Thanks for your help,
Steve

I have enountered this issue before what will happen is Acer is suppose to reset the battery software with one of their specialised tools after that it will work as normal.

[steveg66]

weinter,

thanks for the quick reply. I went onto Acer's website, there is a bios update there that references "change battery criteria"

There is no description on what that means, I wonder if that is the issue?

I have never flashed a bios before, so, I will probably wait until I get feedback from Acer.

Thanks again,
Steve

[weinter]

What I mean is there is no way you can fix it yourself.
I had this issue and had to go to the Acer Service Centre.
There they took my battery and attach it to some special adapter and return it to me 5 min later issue fixed.
I would also recommend a BIOS update since Acer BIOS are pretty buggy the first few release.

[Nm1]

Can anyone confirm the graphic card's mxm type on 5740g? Is it reachable from backplate?

[steveg66]

Guys, gotta a question for you then. The laptop was purchased on the 20th of January. OfficeMax will exchange it within 14 days from purchase. Would you exchange it for a new one? Or, would you see what Acer is gonna do?

It was kinda interesting, I noticed when it was brand new that the battery would only charge to 97%. I didnt think much of it as the company thinkpad that I use has a "threshold" that you set for the battery charge. I figured it did this (97%) to save the battery. Maybe I just have a faulty batter?

Thanks again and I appreciate your help,
Steve

[steveg66]

NM: I have the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD. Hope that helps you out.

BTW- I think Office Depot has a similar machine with BlueRay for 499 this weekend.. Kinda wished I'd waited another week, although I am not complaining as thats what I paid for mine.

[steveg66]

youre not going to believe this, but, I took the computer back to OM to return/exchange due to the battery not charging status.

We tested my battery on the store model and it immediately began charging. We then put the store's battery on mine and same thing. They couldn't find another computer in the system, so they offered the floor model to me. I was hesitant but realized it still had a full MFG warranty. As we were transferring the battery back to my computer, and gettting it ready to exchange I noticed that the battery had begun charging on my computer.

Its been charging great, at least, until today. The "plugged in, not charging" prompt came up again.

Acer support had emailed me and suggested that close computer down, remove battery, hold power button down for 30 seconds, turn on computer and then reinstall the battery. This has not helped, still the same issues.

Any suggestions why this is so sporadic? Why would the other computer have reset the battery?

Any help would be appreciated.

Steve

[Oddemann]

Steve

I just got the same problem as you have. Brand new 5740G and the battery stopped charging. Thats nice!

I am still in the return period, and i am just gonna return the unit.

Regards
Odd

[steveg66]

Hey Odd,

Yeah, I would return it if I were you. Stupid OfficeMax couldn't find another one for me and wouldnt give me my $ back without a 15% restocking charge. Yeah right, a 15% restocking charge on a product that was defective.

This issue is strange, I will get the plugged in and not charging notification for a while then all of a sudden it begins to charge. It doesnt matter if I go thru Acer's proceedure or not.

I have a call ticket with Acer right now to send it in, but, it is working fine for now. My luck is that it will work correctly when they get it so they wont even do a thing with it and send it back to me. Then it will screw up at a later date.

I'd be interested in how you get your issue resolved or if you return and get another one.

Good Luck,
Steve