Compaq 1200 series New Battrery will not charge for more than 10 min

Hi All
I am a moron. I have an old Compar 1200 XL505
The battery has been dead for a year now.
I purchased a new battery

The battery charges up ans says it is at 100%. Wehn I run on battery
power I
last about 5 min then my computer shuts off.

Need to test battery charger or ???

Please help me my extention gord is only 500 feet if I go any further
the computer can not go with me.
Thanks Dave the Moron

 

Hi Dave,

Don't worry, you don't sound like TOO much of a moron... I don't have
exactly the same model (mine is even more ancient!), but hopefully this
will be applicable.

Your main problem is: Is it the new battery defective, or is the laptop
not managing the battery properly? Just because the battery reads 100%
unfortunately does not mean that it possesses full capacity. So with
just your laptop and one battery, you cannot readily tell which the
problem is. If you can find someone who has a laptop that uses the same
battery (not necessarily the same model of laptop), a bit of
experimentation will show whether the problem moves with the battery,
or stays with your laptop. You really need a third device - either
another laptop or battery - to act as a tiebreaker to best identify
the problem. (Concocting a scheme to independently test the battery or
the laptop charging circuitry would be an ambitious undertaking, even
for well above the moron level!) Of course, you could buy yet another
battery from another vendor, but that would be an expensive
disappointment if it turned out to be the laptop!

Here's a couple of things to check also: Since you've been running off
AC power for awhile, make sure that the apparent shutdown after 5
minutes of battery-only operation isn't a battery power management
event of some kind. That is, does it do it if the laptop is actually
idle for 5 minutes while you're just watching (maybe going into
"suspend"), or does it really "dump" you while you're actively typing
away on something? Secondly, I've bought replacement battery packs that
apparently had been sitting on a shelf awhile and only worked a few
minutes at first; but after a bit of exercise (about 5 charge/discharge
cycles) they turned out to be okay. So "charge" onward and see... Good
luck!

Mark