When I first got my Minibook in December, it would charge to 100% and the charge indicator would turn blue. It would last a couple of hours. Later, I noticed it would die suddenly, without warning. Now, it it will never fully charge, often getting stuck at a certain percentage. Currently, it’s stuck at 35%, and no matter how long I leave it to charge, it won’t go higher. The charge indicator is red, and it never turns blue like it used to.
If I unplug and plug the power adapter back in, it will go up by a percentage point.
If I unplug power, it lasts less than 30 minutes and shuts itself off before the battery gets to even 10%, and never warns that the battery is low.
Things I’ve tried:
- Different power adapters. I’ve used both the stock power adapter and an Apple adapter.
- Flashing the EC. I’ve flashed both of the European Version ECs I could find on the forums here.
- Resetting the EC. Pressing the power button for 30 seconds with the power adapter unplugged.
- Uninstalling and re-installing the battery driver in Windows.
- Unplugging the battery. As a last resort, I removed the screws from the bottom of the Minibook, unplugged the battery and plugged it back in.
When I removed the bottom plate to unplug the battery, I noticed that one of the cells appears to be puffed, and I’m pretty sure I can smell the battery leaking (I know the smell from when my FPV racing drone LiPo batteries get damaged).
Because of this, I think I have a bad battery. Last week, I submitted a ticket via Chuwi’s [support ticket form], but I haven’t got a response yet (likely due to the Lunar New Year). Today, upon discovering the battery was puffed, I submitted an additional ticket, sent an email to service@chuwi.com and aftersale@chuwi.com, and sent a message on Facebook as well.
I’ve seen several other posts with similar issues:
2 users report the battery is stuck at 100%
1 user reports their battery won’t charge at all
1 user reports their battery is not present