Ask Lemmy

It won't work, it will try, then inspect the battery for its voltage and other stats via i2c, decide the battery is unsafe, and shut itself off.

I might be wrong, but systems I've worked with do this because they want to make sure the battery won't explode, they have a battery management chip, either on the motherboard or in the battery, and this tells it whether the battery is safe to use or you should shut down, and if it can't communicate it will probably assume it should shut down.

Personally I'd solder a new barrel connector on, or figure out where the dc-dc converter is and either replace it or backfeed.

If it's from the last few years and the barrel input has an adjacent usb-c port it may accept usb power delivery

The port may not even be labeled for it

I think it would be fine. You'll never try to charge it obviously.

Will the laptop be happy with that though? It might be expecting communication with the BMS. I'd just try it and see.

You get to add "Electrician" to your CV. Its the law.

you are probably better off taking it to a computer repair shop to have the issue fixed or replaced, for peace of mind and probably liability reasons

The consequences is that the laptop battery percentage will not be accurate

I would venture a guess that as long as you match the voltage and current ratings of the battery then power itself wont be an issue, but there may still be some specific (possibly proprietary) data exchange that happens between the battery and the mainboard — depending entirely on the model of laptop — that confirms that the battery is legit, or to get diagnostic information. I don't really have example of a laptop that does restrict the battery in such a manner, but this is just a concern that I have off the top of my head that I feel could be in the realm of possibility, and is worthy of concern. Potentially, it could function similar to how Apple iPhones will complain if third party components are used [1].

It may be easier to supply DC power directly to the soldering joints (at the right values after the converter) or even replacing that one component as using the jack itself.

Why not replace the dc-dc converter? Seems like a much simpler fix.

I've seen battery to wall power conversions before. As long as you're feeding the laptop the power it expects from the battery, I don't think it will care.

It really depends on the laptop. A lot of laptops, if they can't communicate to the battery they won't use it. It might piss off the charging circuit as well. You might be able to bypass boot warnings or errors with settings in the BIOS.

You could always try to inject the right voltages further down the bus but you're starting to get into dicey territory.

Maybe see if you can eBay a parts machine.

If you are as handy as you say you are, just solder in a new jack. I'm guessing this is a Lenovo Legion based on the voltage. They are replaceable. I work in a PC shop and do them all the time.

Since laptops are equipped with a battery anyway, they lack of a coin cell (mostly a CR2032 cell) to keep track of time. This means that your laptop will not be able to estimate the correct time and date when powered with energy outside of the original battery, and these settings have to be made manually each time your laptop will be used.

It will work fine without the correct time set, but you might have issues with files that are created "in the future" (from your laptops perspective).

I have an old laptop (still in use occasionally, because I have a scanner that is too old to be operated with current software) where I replaced its battery once. The sign the battery was dead was that the OS issued a warning the laptop was not able to tell the correct time.