[SOLVED] power problem: power up only blinks image of empty battery and shuts down

[DHR]

I have a T100TAF which is over a year old (out of warranty) and barely used. I bought it to run Linux but found out that would be hard. I pulled it off my shelf yesterday and immediately had power problems.

Observations:

• if I pressed the power button, an image of an empty battery would show on the screen and then the machine would turn back off.
• plugging in the charger didn't immediately change this (but surely the T100TAF should run on the charger even if the battery were dead)
• leaving it charging overnight made no difference (but the charging LED stayed amber)
• while it was charging, my USB power measurement device showed 5V 0A (i.e. proper voltage but insignificant current)
• when the power button was pressed, the current went up to 0.4A (if I remember correctly) and then dropped to zero about when the battery image stopped being displayed

These symptoms did not make sense as a total battery failure since, even without the charger, the power on button would work to the extent of briefly showing the empty battery image on the screen.

It did not seem that the charger was bad since there was current shown during the brief power-on state.

With no good hypothesis, I opened the case, disconnected the battery connector, tried to turn on the machine (to no effect), and reconnected the battery. At this point, everything worked! My battery seems to be about 3/4 full before additional charging.

I guess that unplugging and plugging the connector improved one of the contacts. I hope that this fix lasts.

I learned from this video. About 30 seconds in he unplugs the battery. I did it a little differently (with a spudger).

[janner43]

Welcome to the forum & thanks for posting your guide.