Sudden change in both design & full charge capacity of battery

Question

Yesterday I replaced my laptop fan with a new one because it was making too much noise. After that my battery suddenly died, and now I can't use my laptop unless I have my charger plugged in. My battery report was perfectly fine: it had a full charge capacity of about 60,000 and design capacity of 67,010mWh. And yesterday it suddenly dropped into a ridiculous amount of full charge capacity 1mWh and design capacity 2mWh. Due to this sudden decrease, I don't think this is a problem caused by battery aging, but a connection problem that occured during the fan replacement yesterday. If I take my laptop back to the repair center, can I get it repaired for free?

Answer 1

Thanks for bringing this up, Heewon. I understand why this is concerning, especially since the problem started right after the fan replacement.

Based on what you described, this does not look like normal battery wear. It is very likely that during the fan replacement, the battery connector or related circuitry was disturbed.

Here are a few things you can do before going back to the repair center:

1. If you are comfortable opening the laptop again, make sure the battery cable is firmly connected to the motherboard. A loose or misaligned connection can cause Windows to misread the battery.
2. Run Windows battery diagnostics. Press Win + X > Windows Terminal (Admin), run powercfg /batteryreport, and review the report to confirm the abnormal readings.
3. Update BIOS/firmware to be recalibrated after hardware changes. Check your laptop manufacturer’s support page for the latest BIOS update.
4. If your laptop has a reset pinhole or removable battery, disconnect it completely for a few minutes, then reconnect.

If the problem remains, yes, you should return to the repair center. Whether it will be free depends on the terms of their service warranty. Since the issue appeared immediately after their work, you have a strong case to request that they fix it without charging you.

Reference: Additional information about battery

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