Battery error

[JPH]

Hi all

I have just had a very unpleasant travel experience a few days ago. I was working on the aeroplane and hibernated. En route to the hotel I woke up my laptop from hibernation in the car to check a phone number and rehibernated. Get to the hotel and machine won't wake up. I plug it into the AC outlet, I get the flashing orange battery light but it boots. And of course I get the infamous message "Battery error. Battery cannot be charged." etc. And I only had like 25 full cycles on it. Not very good in a country where I had to keep looking for AC outlets, including the airport. And that battery does not qualify for replacement.

Now to the real techies out there:
I believe the board-and-EEPROM is not fried cos Power Manager can still read the info from the battery including the capacity (51%) and voltage. I am guessing it won't charge cos perhaps there is a diode or transistor somewhere that is preventing the smart circuitry from charging the batteries.

Has anyone ever opened up an extended battery 42T4511? If so, any attempted repair of the board with pics or comments? I think it is such a shame that the battery's cells are good but the board is playing up.

Now if the battery gets flat for good, does the board in the battery pack get "reset" and will it allow the batteries to be recharged? Will dumping the battery inside the freezer overnight help?

Please let me hear your comments.

Thx

JP

[richk]

I fix lots of things that most people throw away and I've never had any success fixing batteries