[demonix]

I was charging the battery on my laptop earlier on this week (just to be clear I never have the laptop connected to mains power when it isn't necessary) when I'd noticed that after 3 hours of charging (it had reached around 40% charged before I turned it off) it was still showing the amber charging light and not the blue charging completed light, so I decided to power it back up to see what was happening and the battery indicator was showing that the battery had only been charged to 86% and that it stated that it was still charging so I turned to back off and waited about half an hour to see if there was any change and there wasn't (there should've been at least a 5% or so increase in the battery's charge level in that time) plus the power pack was cold which it shouldn't be if the battery was charging (and the power pack isn't at fault since I can still charge the battery) so I switched it off and disconnected it from the mains to see what happens when I turn it on with it running from the battery.

Which seemed to work well until I noticed the battery level dropping rather quickly during the initial loadup on the desktop (I always let everything load up before I do anything) and even after that the battery would drop by 2% with a few minutes, and after the second charge that initial loadup took 10% of the battery's charge (the usual drain should be around 3% before everything settles) although I am still getting 2 runs from the battery before I need to charge it again.

So I'd guess these symptoms would mean I'd need to get a new battery (I actually googled the problem and those investigations do come to the same conclusion) although even if the laptop might have just passed it's one year warranty I might be able to use the sale of goods act to get another battery for free since I think it should last for more then 200 charges before it starts to fail.