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Question from Corrine: I have a 5 year old HP laptop that won’t work anymore unless it’s plugged into a wall socket.
The battery charge indicator is stuck on 2% charge and it won’t charge any higher than that.
I thought laptop batteries were supposed to last longer than this.
Do you think I need to buy a new battery or could the charger maybe be bad?
Rick’s answer: I’m thinking you do need to buy a new battery for your laptop, Corrine. Depending how they are used and the initial quality of the battery, laptop batteries can either last several years or go belly-up within a year or less.
I seriously doubt that your laptop’s power brick is bad simply because the laptop runs just fine when it’s plugged into a wall outlet.
I believe a new battery will fix your laptop’s charging issue. You can always buy a genuine HP brand replacement battery if you want, but you’ll likely save some serious cash by going with a quality third-party battery instead.
I recommend the your check out the selection at Amazon. Simply type the following into the Amazon search box:
HP [model] battery
Be sure to replace [model] with the actual model number of your laptop. You’ll likely be presented with a number of choices.
Reading the user reviews should help you choose a good one while still saving some money.
And now, one final note…
I don’t know the model of your laptop so I can’t say for sure but there’s a good chance that you’ll need to disassemble the laptop in order to replace the battery.
If your laptop doesn’t have an easily removeable battery you can hit YouTube and search for something like replace HP [model] battery. You’ll likely find several videos that show how to make the replacement.
I hope this helps, Corrine. Good luck!