Quality Matters. Laptop batteries are more complex than most people think. Laptop batteries have a controller chip that communicates with both the laptop & the laptop’s charger. In essence, they all have onboard chipsets that communicate data amongst each other in order to make sure charging, discharging & health are all in-check to prevent any catastrophic failures and deliver your machine the power it demands at any given time. If something is wrong, there are preventative measures that these chipsets implement to keep a laptop or battery from damage after a short, heat, surge, etc… Therefore, it’s important to have a quality battery that you can count on.

 

Chances are, you’ve come across the situation in which you purchased a cheap battery from a large online store, installed it, and it works better than the old one. Then, six months, maybe 12 months later, it won’t hold a charge any longer. Sometimes your new battery doesn’t even work after installation. There is a reason that $30-$50 batteries are as cheap as they are. Most of them are rebuilt batteries. They have been scrapped, the bad battery cells are replaced with ones that work from a matching used battery, the controller chip is reprogrammed and the components are wrapped in new enclosures. The battery is then priced on the market for sale as a new product. This is a common thing.

 

How do we know this to be true? I’m glad you asked. We are probably one of very few or the only computer repair shop in Mandeville, Louisiana; maybe even within the state that has a Professional Laptop Battery Analyzer. We use these analyzers in unique cases while diagnosing tricky charging issues in which a computer just behaves bizarrely with the battery it’s using. The analyzer can confirm to us whether or not the battery has an issue and might be causing problems. These Professional Laptop Battery Analyzers give a comprehensive report on the battery’s information through its controller like elaborated battery specifications, charge information, discharge information, allows you to calibrate and fully cycle the battery, gives you a fully tested cell check, controller chip programming, overall test of the battery, etc… It is so detailed in its reports, that it gives you the manufacturer’s assigned serial number, model number and manufacture date. One of the features of this tool is its detailed report of dynamic and static information, such as how many times the battery has been cycled (charged/discharged) for instance. This is important information for our diagnostics in certain situations so we see the battery’s history, even when a customer states that they just installed it new. If the battery is new, then it wouldn’t have 265 cycles, show that it was manufactured 5 years ago and show poor battery cell health. As you can see, we know our batteries and everyone else’s batteries that come to our shop as well.

 

Now that you know our skills, we can confidently tell you that we avoid cheap batteries and provide only new, Samsung manufactured quality batteries with brand-new Texas instrument controllers built into them. If we can’t match your computer’s battery with one of these, we will install a new battery directly from your computer’s branded manufacturer. After installation, we fully cycle the battery to ensure that it charges to 100% and properly discharges to anywhere between 3-7% before the battery gives your computer a shut-down command. This ensures that the battery is working properly and we can confirm it’s good health before handing your computer back to you.

 

If you’re experiencing random shutdowns, your computer is holding a very short-lived charge, you have to keep the power plug inserted to keep your laptop on, you notice the charge dropping quickly or it never reaches 100% charge, bring it by and let us take a good look at it. We will give your entire charging system (Charging adapter, computer, battery) a full diagnosis and report it to you with the solution before you authorize any work.