Reasons & Solutions – Laptop only Works when Plugged In [2022]

Laptops are handheld portable devices that work on batteries. If the battery isn’t working fine or there is some issue with the battery, it may cause the laptop to shut down automatically when using, or it may not start at all without a charger or adapter connected to it.

Under these conditions, the high possibilities are that your laptop battery isn’t connected properly or the battery needs to be replaced. Other possibilities may include a faulty motherboard or some hardware issue, but we will see that in detail in this article.

For most laptops, after they have been used excessively, they will have this problem, and usually, the problem is the battery, but here we will suggest you look at other things as well before you get to replace your battery to fix the issue.

Things to Check

Here are things to check in order to address this issue:

• You need to make sure that the BIOS of your laptop is updated to the latest version.
• Check the connector pins properly on the battery and make sure there isn’t any fault, such as bent or corroded pins that might be breaking the connection, or other physical issues with the battery.
• Try to completely drain the battery first, then you can get it out of the laptop and leave it out for a day, then charge it back to its full.
• You should know that replacing the battery would be compulsory anyway even when it is working with an adapter, but you can rely on the adapter every time because of what will you do when the power goes out.
• You must also check to see if there is no corrosion on the battery pins; it will require changing the motherboard if you find corrosion.
• If this happens under any circumstances, even with a new working battery, then you should know that your motherboard needs to be replaced.

How to Check Battery life?

There are a few ways to analyze your battery, and we have shared them with you in easy steps so you can check the power and battery of your laptop by yourself.

• Plug the laptop into charging and let it charge to a full battery at 100%. Now keep the laptop on and start using it without an adapter to see the power meter.
• If it shuts down immediately, you have a bad battery on your laptop.
• If it shuts down after some time, like within (10–20 minutes), then the possibility is that you have a bad battery.
• For these problems to be fixed, you can visit the official website of your laptop manufacturer and look for any kind of diagnostic tool that may show you the problem with your battery or your hardware. Run the diagnostic tool and analyze the problem.
• The last possibility of this may be that the charging cable or the power adapter that you are using for your laptop is not strong enough. The power adapter may be strong enough to run your laptop on charge but not enough to charge up its battery.
• So you can shut down the laptop for a while and let it charge for a while. After some time, check to see if it charged the battery or not. If the battery is charged a little bit, then you might have an issue with your adapter, and if it doesn’t work still, then your battery is faulty.
• Replace the battery or check the manufacturer’s suggested adapter for your laptop model. This should fix your issue.

Conclusion

This was all about the laptop not being able to work when the charging cable is not attached. We shared complete details of what might cause the problem of the laptop only working when it is plugged in. For more questions, ask us.