Compaq CQ61 power/charging issues

Quiet_Duplicity · May 14, 2015

Currently having power problems with a Compaq CQ61 laptop.

When I plug the charger into the dc jack it doesn't stay in a charging state. The power led next to the dc jack stays on constantly but the charging led on the front of the laptop switches on and off every few seconds, this also continues when I boot up windows, constant switching between a charging and battery use power management state, inconsistent charging.

The really strange thing is that if I unplug everything for a day or two, plug everything back in and turn the system on there is a high chance that it will run perfectly, charging the battery and everything....for a while. Left the system on when it was working for a few days and by the third day the problem had returned all on it's own. If when in a working state I unplug the power and plug it back in there is an extremely high chance that the problem will return immediately, doesn't matter whether the system was on or off at the time.

I'm thinking it's going to be most likely one of three things, motherboard, dc jack or the charger. Maybe something is causing a static charge to build up, would explain why it seems to work after being unpowered for a time.

I should also mention that the problem began around the time lightning hit close to the house. Said lightning fried the modem plugged into the same powerboard as the laptop AND fried the laptop NIC, everything else aside from the charging works fine but the NIC hasn't worked since.

Has anyone else encountered a similar problem with inconsistent charging? Will replacing the DC jack or the charger likely fix the problem or is the system just salvage now?

Any help would greatly be appreciated,
Steve.

Darkbreeze · May 14, 2015

Replace the battery. I had the exact same issue on a CQ62. That entire Compaq family had terrible batteries and replacing the battery solved the entire issue for at least three similar units belonging to clients that I personally dealt with. I've also read thread after thread of similar battery related issues on a number of the CQ series units.

The Anker aftermarket batteries available through Amazon come in higher capacity models and IMO are higher quality than the OEM units they came with.

If you google your exact model number, for example, CQ62-231NR, the CQ 61 isn't the full model number and it can be located on the back of the unit or in the battery compartment, along with "Anker replacement battery", chances are good you'll get an instant result to the correct model on Amazon.

If the unit works normally some of the time, and all of the time when connected to AC power with the battery removed, chances are very good that the power jack is fine. Power jack issues don't typically come and go. If there's a problem, it's generally all the time.

Quiet_Duplicity · May 14, 2015

Darkbreeze :

I don't think it's the battery, if it was just the battery I shouldn't have any problems powering the system on with just the mains connected and no battery installed. I should have said in my original post that it seems like it's inconsistent power not inconsistent charging.

If the system feels like working it works fine, battery or no battery, it doesn't make a difference. If it feels like being troublesome the system won't turn on for more than a second or two without a battery. If it's working fine without a battery then the problem starts the system instantly dies as would be expected.

Darkbreeze · May 14, 2015

Yeah, that's a much different scenario than just a battery issue. Almost certainly the power jack. A motherboard issue would be inclined to be continuous. I'd look into replacing the power jack or the unit. Sometimes they're a real PITA to replace and other times it's fairly straight forward depending on the model. I haven't done a jack on a CQ unit so I can't say for sure but almost certainly there's a tutorial video for it as I haven't encountered too many without one.

Transformer issues with the charging cable are fairly common as a result of power surges so I'd try another cable first. You can get a suitable replacement fairly cheap so I'd recommend starting there. I think the last one I bought for a CQ was about ten bucks.

Quiet_Duplicity · May 14, 2015

That's reassuring to hear that it's probably not the motherboard since it's not continuous, as far as the difficulty of replacing the DC jack I know that it's super simple since I've already removed it once, it's corded and simply plugs into the motherboard.

The laptop itself was given to me because it was "slow and crashed constantly" so I stripped it down to bare bones, cleaned all the dust out and reseated the cpu and heatsink with some fresh thermal paste. A HDD format and fresh windows install and it runs beautifully now, aside from the dead NIC and power troubles.

For now I've decided to take your advice and order a new charger since you said it's likely the cause due to the power surge, the lightning did fry the NIC and adsl modem after-all. Found one on ebay for AU $14 including postage since I'm in Australia, should be here by Friday next week. If that doesn't work there are also some DC jacks on ebay for less than $10.

Thanks for the help, will post an update when I receive the charger.

Darkbreeze · May 14, 2015

Sounds like a good plan. Good luck and I'll look forward to hearing that you resolved the problem.

Quiet_Duplicity · May 21, 2015

Darkbreeze :

Received the replacement power supply this morning and it seems to have fixed the problem however there are couple caveats.

Firstly the system will not power on at all without the battery installed like it should. It might be an incompatiblity with this new power supply even though they both have indentical voltage, amp, watt ratings. When the battery isn't installed and I plug in AC power the power led next to the jack lights up for a few seconds then turns off, the system does not power on at all in this state.

Secondly, the windows 7 default battery control driver would not recognize whether the AC power was connected or not, even though it was still charging. Windows would just stay in a battery use power state. Disabling said driver would cause windows to again recognize when AC power was connected, re-enabling the driver would cause it to return to a battery use power state.

Third, installed Kali linux which was the plan from the start anyway and it has no problem recognizing the AC power connection.

A quick google search turned up a bunch of results that point to bios versions as the root of the problem. Some CQ61 systems run on 90W supplys, others on 65W and the bios updates have caused some non-HP AC supplies to have these types of problems.

Since the plan was to use this as a practice Kali system so I can learn to use Kali/linux and tinker without any worries of wiping important info from my HDD I'm not really worried about the power issues now. It's reliably charging and runs as it should in Kali on AC power as long as the battery is installed and lets face it, I don't intend to run this without a battery installed anyway. If I get bored in the future I might try to flash a couple different bios versions onto this to see if I can get it to run without the battery installed but atm it's not a priority at all.

I really appreciate the help darkbreeze, Thank you.

P.S. this was sent from the laptop in question, working fine.

Darkbreeze · May 21, 2015

Nice. Glad to hear it. My CQ62 and a few other CQ models I worked on did also have a few quirks that were remedied by an updated bios so I'd probably do that anyhow, even without the funky behavior. Good luck to you.

Search

Compaq CQ61 power/charging issues

Quiet_Duplicity

Reputable

Darkbreeze

Darkbreeze

Retired Mod

Quiet_Duplicity

Reputable

Darkbreeze

Retired Mod

Quiet_Duplicity

Reputable

Darkbreeze

Retired Mod

Quiet_Duplicity

Reputable

Darkbreeze

Retired Mod

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page