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I noticed just today that in the top right of my screen that my battery was not charging but i had my charger connected in the laptop itself, my laptop is a T460s Lenovo laptop and it has lights to show that the charger is connected and they are lit up and in the power statistics it detects the charger and says it is online, but when I look in the system settings it shows that it is not charging and that it is not losing power, nor is it gaining any power. I do not know what to do on my operating system to help, I am using Ubuntu 20.04.

George
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    Try and reset the POWER MANAGER this way... shutdown computer, hold down the POWER button for ~30 seconds, reboot, recheck indicator. Report back. If this fixes the problem, I'll write a formal answer for you. – heynnema Apr 26 '22 at 18:17
  • I tried this just now but nothing happened, I don't think I've made it clear but the laptop does detect the charger in the settings, but no power is coming in. What do I do? @heynnema – George Apr 26 '22 at 18:40
  • You tried my suggestion to reset the PM, yes? Is your battery fully charged? – heynnema Apr 26 '22 at 18:46
  • I tried your suggestion to reset the PM and I did exactly as you told me to do it, the battery is at 97% and I cannot charge it due to this issue – George Apr 26 '22 at 18:55
  • How old is the laptop? How old is the battery? Unplug the charger, run on battery until 80%, the replug charger and see if it charges back to 97%. – heynnema Apr 26 '22 at 18:58
  • The laptop was given to me like 2-3 years ago and it wasn't used long, and also if i tried that it wouldnt charge, because the laptop is saying that it's not charging. – George Apr 26 '22 at 19:03
  • Actually I'd just like to report back, I tried out your suggestion again and I removed all cords running into the laptop, and I held the button for 60 seconds instead of 30, and when I got to the log in screen it showed my battery as "charging". – George Apr 26 '22 at 19:15
  • do you have tlp installed? That's a tool for thinkpads only. Try sudo tlp fullcharge BAT0 to reach 100% – Umbertones Apr 26 '22 at 19:36
  • I had a similar issue, it doesn't charge when over 90% full. But if it dips below, then it charges. I think it has more to do with the hardware. Windows reports it as "charging" even though the percentage doesn't change. So in my case, everything is working correctly but the reporting of the battery is confusing – Kevin Nasto Apr 25 '23 at 17:24

3 Answers3

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Try and reset the Power management (a feature that turns off the power or switches the system's components to a low-power state when inactive) this way:

Shutdown computer, hold down the Power button for ~30 seconds and reboot. Then, recheck indicator.

heynnema
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  • That didn't work. Didn't seem to do anything. – kris Mar 14 '23 at 15:47
  • @kris No reason to down vote this answer. You can tell by the green check mark that it worked for the original poster. – heynnema Mar 14 '23 at 17:59
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    I'm not voting for those other people. It didn't work for me. I can only speak/vote for myself based on my own experience. (Same goes for the other folks... otherwise by a symmetric argument to yours... any answer that already has a negative score should not ever be upvoted by other people who did find it useful. – kris Mar 14 '23 at 22:37
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    @kris If you're also having charging problems, you may have a hardware problem. Battery, charger, and motherboard come to mind. You can also do some software troubleshooting... but without knowing your specific details, I can't comment further. Coming to AskUbuntu is a good place to start getting ideas on how to solve your problem... and you may find 10 different solutions, many of which may NOT solve YOUR specific problem... so do you down vote them all? – heynnema Mar 14 '23 at 22:59
  • It's working again now after a few restarts. It seems to charge just fine once it 'decides to work' . Battery now at 100%. However very often when I shutdown the machine the next time I restart it just 'refuses' to charge. What I mean 'refuse' is it shows that the battery is in state 'discharging' and keeps on draining it. Last time it drained down to under 50%. Then I restarted it and it then started charging but showed battery as 0% full eventually it charged to 100%. I haven't restarted it since then and it remains at 100%. I suspect the next restart this problem will come back however. – kris Mar 15 '23 at 03:51
  • @kris If your battery is removable, remove it, and then do my procedure but hold the power button for 60 seconds. Then retest. – heynnema Mar 15 '23 at 12:17
  • It is not removable (at least not unless you are certified Dell technician with the proper tools and knowledge, i.e. not meant to be removed casually). – kris Mar 15 '23 at 15:21
  • @kris At least try the 60-second thing. – heynnema Mar 15 '23 at 18:49
  • Already tried the 60 second thing before. It didn't seem to do anything. It just seems to startup the laptop exactly how it would otherwise and I just keep holding the button throughtout this process. Anyway... somehow last restart I did the battery is charging normally now. Not sure it will last this time but I am hopeful. – kris Mar 15 '23 at 19:18
  • BTW: I tried to remove my downvote (I see your point :-) but am not allowed to anymore unless the answer is edited. – kris Mar 15 '23 at 19:19
  • @kris I edited the answer, so you probably should be able to remove your down vote. I don't know if you need to click the down or up arrow to do so. – heynnema Mar 15 '23 at 20:44
  • removing the battery during the power reset seems to be critical – FObersteiner Jun 27 '23 at 08:57
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I've had same issue twice, and each time, it was the power cable of the charger (Note, not the charger itself). Try switching the power cable with another to test and see if it works.

Cedric Ipkiss
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I had the same problem and noticed the use of bluethooth LogitechMX mouse was causing system to stop charging battery. After disconnecting the mouse from the bluethooth battery started to charge right away. I use the same mouse now but with the USB adaptor.

Sergo
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