Yesterday I decided to take out my old Toshiba laptop from the storage and use it. It had been sitting in the storage locker for more than 10 months so I figured its battery charge must have dropped very low. I plugged in the charge cable to the laptop and turned it on. It booted into Windows and everything worked fine except that it was showing “No battery present” icon in the notification area.
There was the battery attached to the laptop but still it refused to detect the battery. The computer was running only through the charger cable. This means if there is a brownout or AC power fluctuations, the laptop will be turned off and perhaps there might be data loss.
Here are some of the steps I took to fix this problem and make Windows detect the battery:
Reset and reconfigure the BIOS/UEFI
Sometimes the battery data is not even being read in the BIOS. In these cases, we may try first resetting the BIOS settings back to the factory defaults or failsafe defaults. And then changing them to the personalized values. After this, you should check if battery data is begin shown correctly in the BIOS battery section.
Clean the battery connectors
If you leave the laptop unused for many months or years, then the battery terminals might get some dust after a few months of use. We can clean this dust easily by turning off the PC, removing the battery, and cleaning the terminals using a brush or a cotton swab. Do not use any chemicals, water or wet cotton swabs. You should use only dry brush or cotton swabs to rub gently on the battery terminals as well as the laptop battery socket.
Charge the battery for 12-24 hours
It is very much possible that your laptop’s Lithium-ion battery has run out completely of charge. In these cases, the battery may not be of any use unless you charge it for a number of hours. This could also make the computer not detect the battery. An easy solution is to leave the laptop connected to the charger for 8-12 hours. This should make the battery charge level go up to a detectable level.
These are few of the steps that we can use to make Windows re-detect the battery. However, if your laptop has been in use for more than 5 years then the chances are that the battery is actually dead or faulty. In that case, you may have to buy a new replacement battery.