The battery in my laptop started to inflate a couple of months ago (no wonder, since I use it as a desktop PC and have it plugged in 24/7) and it reached a level where it created a pretty visible bulge on the housing, so I thought it was time to remove it. And I did. Removing the battery was pretty simple, I just had to unscrew everything on the bottom and pop the keyboard off the top. And there it was: horse penis the battery. It was pretty inflated (obviously). But when I removed it, problems started to arise.
I tried turning the laptop on without the battery and it booted straight to the BIOS. "Weird", I thought. I set the date and time (because I noticed they were reset), saved the settings and restarted. Boom, kicked back into the BIOS. I tried a couple more times, but it was pretty obvious the situation was not going to change. My first thought was that, for whatever reason, the laptop wouldn't start without the battery. Since I didn't feel like paying HUF 17,000 (€52) for a new battery just to have the same thing happen again, I had the brilliant idea of removing the Li-ion battery from it's housing (it wasn't wired directly into the motherboard, instead it had a plastic housing with some circuitry and a connector) and plugging it in without the batteries inside to fool the laptop. The battery was glued to the case's inside, but it was pretty easy to get them apart with a flat-head screwdriver... or so I thought.
While trying to do so, my hand slipped. It felt like I went through a thick layer of glue, but then it hit me. The smell. I looked down at the battery and realised I poked a hole through it. "Shit. It's gonna blow." I thought. I don't actually know much about lithium-ion batteries, but I've seen enough videos of them catching on fire and exploding when punctured on the internet to know I'm in danger. My immediate thought was to run down into the garden and throw it on the ground on the farthest possible point from any object. It didn't blow, so that's good. After a little waiting I realised I still needed the housing, but I had a better idea. Just the connector and the circuit board will do. I got a face protector and a pair of scissors and marched down to the thing. It was sparking like a motherfucker while I was cutting it, but I got it off without it blowing up. I placed the battery in a bucket of water (I read that would slowly and safely discharge it), went upstairs with the circuit board, plugged it in, and... nothing. I still got booted to the BIOS. I looked up the problem on the internet and realised it was a completely unrelated problem with the BIOS settings, so I fixed those and it finally started properly.
I wrote this blog from the laptop. All's well now. I'll have to figure out a way to dispose of the battery tomorrow, but that's it for now.
I tried turning the laptop on without the battery and it booted straight to the BIOS. "Weird", I thought. I set the date and time (because I noticed they were reset), saved the settings and restarted. Boom, kicked back into the BIOS. I tried a couple more times, but it was pretty obvious the situation was not going to change. My first thought was that, for whatever reason, the laptop wouldn't start without the battery. Since I didn't feel like paying HUF 17,000 (€52) for a new battery just to have the same thing happen again, I had the brilliant idea of removing the Li-ion battery from it's housing (it wasn't wired directly into the motherboard, instead it had a plastic housing with some circuitry and a connector) and plugging it in without the batteries inside to fool the laptop. The battery was glued to the case's inside, but it was pretty easy to get them apart with a flat-head screwdriver... or so I thought.
While trying to do so, my hand slipped. It felt like I went through a thick layer of glue, but then it hit me. The smell. I looked down at the battery and realised I poked a hole through it. "Shit. It's gonna blow." I thought. I don't actually know much about lithium-ion batteries, but I've seen enough videos of them catching on fire and exploding when punctured on the internet to know I'm in danger. My immediate thought was to run down into the garden and throw it on the ground on the farthest possible point from any object. It didn't blow, so that's good. After a little waiting I realised I still needed the housing, but I had a better idea. Just the connector and the circuit board will do. I got a face protector and a pair of scissors and marched down to the thing. It was sparking like a motherfucker while I was cutting it, but I got it off without it blowing up. I placed the battery in a bucket of water (I read that would slowly and safely discharge it), went upstairs with the circuit board, plugged it in, and... nothing. I still got booted to the BIOS. I looked up the problem on the internet and realised it was a completely unrelated problem with the BIOS settings, so I fixed those and it finally started properly.
I wrote this blog from the laptop. All's well now. I'll have to figure out a way to dispose of the battery tomorrow, but that's it for now.
