Battery won't charge - orange blinks

Hi!

Totally new here and totally new at AAO. I got a ZG5 that was laying all packed up in a garage. The thing is that it has been used, but for a very short peroid of time. It stayed in the garage from the middle of February (the coldest it got was probably -15 C). Otherwise it is working fine, but the battey won't charge. It even doesn't want to stay on battery. If I unplug the powercord I get an immediate shutdown. If I try to charge it the orange light comes on but starts to blink at mid-long interval after a minute or two.

I kind of think that the battery is long dead by now. What are your opinions? It's a 3-cell type. Is swapping for a 6-cell straight swap or do I need a compatible battery just for this unit?

Thanks!

 

I had the same problem with mine. It had been used for a short time then when i went to use it again some month later it would not charge. All I had to do was update the bios to the newest version (3009) to fix the issue. You can find it on the acer support site. I used this guide to flash the bios:

http://4zzblawg.wordpress.com/2008/11/0 ... lash-bios/

 

Thanks, that actually solved my problem instantly. I just hope the battery still has some grunt. :mrgreen: Probably needs a little massage too.

 

I would really be surprised if the battery was bad. The AA1 just hasn't been around long enough for the batteries to be going bad yet (assuming normal use). You should be alright now that you have revived your system.

 

I always try to be realistic. Actually it was sitting in an open garage from 27th January until this weekend when I dug it. Temperatures were most of the time freezing.

I'm an enthusiast auto repairer and I know what extreme temperatures can do to a discharged battery. In harsh conditions it is always good to have the battery fully charged than discharged. Even then there's no guarantee that the battery will wake up or perform flawlessly. The damage will be seen after some time. Li-Ion are more cycle sensitive than lead batteries in a car for example. Latter ones prefer to be charged over and over so that power level never drops below 85%, but cycling Li-Ion only shows what went wrong in the past.
Battery is now fine, longest uptime was app. 3hrs 10 minutes. I already ordered a 6-cell 6600 mAh, even though this one is alright. After all I'll be using both.

I remember my GF having a new Acer Travelmate and battery died after three months. From 3hrs it went down just to 20 mins when fully charged. I hope Acer really got it this time.

 

I experienced the same problem after not using my Acer Aspire One Netbook (w/optional 6-cell battery) for about 4 months. I couldn't figure out if it was a defective battery or battery charger...so, I called Acer U.S. support (1-800-816-2237)...it was neither! The technician had me unplug the power cable, remove the battery, and then hold the power button down for 30 seconds...this fixed the problem immediately. The technician told me that this is a common problem with laptop computers...hope this helps someone else!