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Acer Chromebook won't charge or switch on.

MikeMA

pfm Member
I have an Acer Chromebook 514, it's about six months old. It was working fine until yesterday evening when it ran out of power. I put it on charge and noticed that the charging light hadn't come on, and it wouldn't power up even when connected to the mains power supply.

I've done some googling and watched a few You Tube vids, and apparently it's a not uncommon fault. I've checked the obvious things like the external charger and power connection and they are fine. Various other solutions are suggest, including a hard reset and disconnecting and reconnecting the battery. I've tried those too, several times, but with no luck. I know the charger is working because If I leave the battery disconnected and just plug the Chromebook in it powers up and works fine.

According to Google the problem could be a battery management software issue or simply a failed battery, or something else entirely. I'm a bit reluctant to fork out for a new battery as I doubt it would suddenly fail after six months, though not impossible of course. I'm left wondering what to do next. I know as a last resort I could take it to a local repair shop but are there any simple diagnostic checks I can perform which might give me a better clue as to what the problem is?
 
I have an Acer Chromebook 514, it's about six months old. It was working fine until yesterday evening when it ran out of power. I put it on charge and noticed that the charging light hadn't come on, and it wouldn't power up even when connected to the mains power supply.

I've done some googling and watched a few You Tube vids, and apparently it's a not uncommon fault. I've checked the obvious things like the external charger and power connection and they are fine. Various other solutions are suggest, including a hard reset and disconnecting and reconnecting the battery. I've tried those too, several times, but with no luck. I know the charger is working because If I leave the battery disconnected and just plug the Chromebook in it powers up and works fine.

According to Google the problem could be a battery management software issue or simply a failed battery, or something else entirely. I'm a bit reluctant to fork out for a new battery as I doubt it would suddenly fail after six months, though not impossible of course. I'm left wondering what to do next. I know as a last resort I could take it to a local repair shop but are there any simple diagnostic checks I can perform which might give me a better clue as to what the problem is?

Surely it is still under warranty?
 
If it's 6 months old then a warranty will apply. consult with the retailer as to best remedy.
 
Surely it is still under warranty?

If it's 6 months old then a warranty will apply. consult with the retailer as to best remedy.

Get it seen soon.
At 6 months warranty rights change.

Sorry, I should have made it clear that I bought this from an Ebay dealer as an "opened box never used" item at a considerable discount, and it was actually seven months ago. I knew I was taken a bit of a risk, but it was a current model looked brand new and performed faultlessly from the off so I doubt there was anything wrong with it or that I was ripped off, and anyhow the dealer seems to have disappeared so I'm on my own.
 
Press Ctrl + Alt + T to open crosh and type in help to see what commands you can run

Try running battery_test 1

Some info here might help
https://support.hp.com/gb-en/document/c04355990

If the battery is goosed and it’s in year 1 of the warranty it should be covered.
Thanks for this. Have opened crosh and tried running battery_test 1 but it returns "no battery found" which I'm guessing is because I've had to unplug the battery to get it to run off the external power supply. If I reconnect the battery it simply won't start. I'm stuck!
 
Sounds like you’ve done the usual stuff, remove the battery and power on using mains charger, get into OS and shutdown normally, insert battery and try to power on, allow 20 mins to charge then unplug charger. A totally drained battery can prevent boot, it needs a % of charge to talk to the laptop and boot normally.

The EC Reset also done?
 
Are batteries exempt from distance selling consumer law?
If not just buy one online and if it isn’t the battery send it back.
 
Are batteries exempt from distance selling consumer law?
If not just buy one online and if it isn’t the battery send it back.
If you buy a lithium battery make sure it comes from the UK. I bought one from Amazon which was delivered from the USA. It didn't work. I could find no carrier to take on delivering it back.( See the Royal Mail position here https://www.royalmail.com/sites/def...nd-restricted-items-may-01-2018--23745440.pdf .)I ended up having a very extensive discussion with Amazon before they eventually refunded my money.
 
Hi, yes the joys of a laptop battery, had my Acer about 3-4 years now it will run for 15 mins before the battery is dead, after a full charge, i think everyone on here must have theirs plugged into the mains 24/7 when in use,
 
For anyone who's interested, I managed to get hold of a working battery salvaged from a similar Chromebook for next to nothing and install it in mine. It's now fully charged and I have a properly working Chromebook again :) The only slight downside is that the replacement battery is actually five years older than the one it replaced, but at least it works and cost me very little, so I'm well pleased.

One thing I've learnt from all this is that finding an exact replacement is not as easy as I'd assumed. My particular Acer Chromebook model has had four different batteries during its - still continuing - production run, all with slightly different cable lengths and connectors, and only the right one will fit. My particular versions seems to be as rare as hen's teeth which is part of the reason I ended up using a salvaged one. A brand new one from Acer would have been about half the price of a new Chromebook.
 
You need to check the number of cycles for which the battery has been designed. If for example its 300 cycles and you use it daily until it needs recharging then it'll be dead after a year. A thousand cycle battery used the same way will last 3 years and if used for just an hour or so each day may last 10 years or more.

My lawnmower batteries are still going strong after more than 10 years.

DV
 
You need to check the number of cycles for which the battery has been designed. If for example its 300 cycles and you use it daily until it needs recharging then it'll be dead after a year. A thousand cycle battery used the same way will last 3 years and if used for just an hour or so each day may last 10 years or more.

My lawnmower batteries are still going strong after more than 10 years.

DV
I've checked the details printed on the battery and there is no obvious information about the number of charge/discharge cycles it's designed for, and I can't find anything online.

As an aside, I'm not entirely convinced that the old battery is entirely knackered, and I'm wondering if it's simply become discharged to such an extent that the battery management software can't deal with it. I may see if I can goose it up a bit by charging it externally.
 
Ctrl + Alt + T to open crosh

battery_firmware info
Cycle Count
battery-test 0
Battery Health​

Cycle count is 98

Battery health is 90.82%

Battery charge down to 65% from 93% after 6 hrs continual use.

Doesn't look too bad to me. What do you think?
 
I have a solution. Put Darth's lawnmower batteries into the laptop.

Done and done as the kids say.

Joe
 


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