A brand new laptop battery should last more than 3 weeks, shouldn't it??

[CiderIUpAndSetIFree]

Admittedly I'm rubbish at shutting down at the end of the day and just tend to close the lid when I'm not using it, but even so, the battery should last a few months at least, shouldn't it?

It's a Compaq 15" laptop, about 3 years old. The battery it came with started to fail when it was about 2.6 years old, so I know it's possible for a battery to last a fair while even with my treatment.

I bought a second hand battery to replace it, and it lasted two weeks.

I then invested in a brand new one - now 3 weeks in, it's holding absolutely no charge so just dies when you unplug it.

Do I have cause for complaint, or am I just too bad and neglectful?

are you sure you've set it to charge up? I have a wee icon in the bottom right corner that i can click on and change the settings for it to recharge or just run off the wire.

Electrical goods all have a 12 month guarantee, you can take your battery back as it's unfit for purpose.

Batteries should definitely last longer than 3 weeks.

Sounds like it isn't charging properly - I don't have much knowledge but could there be something not right with the power supply? I had a problem where it wasn't charging it at all.

Does it get to full charge and then have no charge really quickly?

It's not charging at all at the moment, when you click on the battery icon it says 'plugged in, not charging'.

Both the new batteries did work at first, but then their performance dropped off dramatically and they died fairly quickly - the first one within 6 weeks and the second one within 3 weeks.

It may actually be something to do with the power supply now I come to think of it - the original lead started to have a bit of a dodgy connection (at the hole where it plugged into the computer) so I'm now using one of those 'universal' leads. I think the new lead has coincided with the battery-failing behaviour.

The actual laptop works fine off mains power, but maybe the new power lead is frying the batteries or something, is that possible?