Welcome to Just Ask Matt! Today, Mandy writes:

How do I resync or calibrate a laptop battery? We have a couple of laptops where the batteries won’t charge at all.

Well Mandy, it has been my experience that this can happen from the following:

1. Battery memory issue
2. BIOS or computer recall issue
3. Bad battery

Luckily, it is often just a battery memory issue. While every notebook is a little different, most will allow you to recondition the battery via a power setting in the BIOS. For the most part, you have two options here. You can either ‘go fishing’ for the battery conditioning setting yourself, or you can be safe and actually read the documentation that came with the notebook.

In the case that the notebook does not allow for such an option, you might try fully discharging the battery (unless it is a Li-Ion battery - then fully charge it to ‘retrain’ it to its full battery life). If none of this helps, then you might have a bad battery. One thing that comes to mind is the issue I have seen with a LARGE number of Compaq notebooks recently. Models from 2001-2002 seem to have this nasty habit of having no charge capacity whatsoever. Turned out to be a real problem. So you might check the manufacturer’s Web site for a potential recall notice. Hope this helps!

Do you have an IT-related question? Perhaps you are just burnt out on writing on the walls with crayons? Whatever the
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