Lenovo 320-151AP

[Bazza]

Hi, I am hoping that some can please help. My laptop has an orange light flashing rapid on the charge port. If I start from battery only it starts flashing, have tried, disconnecting battery but as soon as charger plugged in it starts flashing. Battery is fine and charges to 100%, have drained to 5% and took 5 hrs, drained excess power with battery disconnected but still does it. Could this be something to do with the power management chip. Everyone says it's a battery problem, so installed Vantage from Lenovo and it finds nothing wrong.
I wondered if windows 11 could have anything to do with it, you don't always notice the flashing as slightly under the side, if anybody has any ideas I would be really grateful.
One last thing can I put 8gb of ram in this, only has one slot.
Thanks for a fantastic site.
Barry

[mon2]

Re: Lenovo 320-151AP

Hi. Review the silk screen markings on the logic board. Post them here.

If available, post or link the schematics for this logic board.

If you remove the battery and use only the adapter, does the logic board power up like normal?

Do you see the battery icon in the Windows desktop? Does it show that it is charging even without the battery?

The charger IC communicates with the battery back over the SMBUS (I2C) interface. There may be a fault in the battery detection logic if you see the battery graphics when the battery is absent.

[Bazza]

Re: Lenovo 320-15iAP

[QUOTE=Bazza;1183657]Hi, I am hoping that some can please help. My laptop has an orange light flashing rapid on the charge port. If I start from battery only it starts flashing, have tried, disconnecting battery but as soon as charger plugged in it starts flashing. Battery is fine and charges to 100%, have drained to 5% and took 5 hrs, drained excess power with battery disconnected but still does it. Could this be something to do with the power management chip. Everyone says it's a battery problem, so installed Vantage from Lenovo and it finds nothing wrong.
I wondered if windows 11 could have anything to do with it, you don't always notice the flashing as slightly under the side, if anybody has any ideas I would be really grateful.
One last thing can I put 8gb of ram in this, only has one slot.
Thanks for a fantastic site.
Barry
PS. It's now not charging sits a 54% but it reconises it's on ac power

[Bazza]

Re: Lenovo 320-15iAP

Hi, Many thanks for the reply.
With battery removed powers on like normal on ac, but no light on charging port at all not even white, but was before.
Battery icon is present but has X in the center, Vantage icon on screen says battery 100%.
I have no link to schematics, have tried.
Lenovo 320-15iAP
80XR00T9UK
Bios:5RCN36WW
Working off a iPad, have attached a picture hope it comes through.
Am a bit old for this as 76 yrs old, please take it slowly.

[Sephir0th]

Re: Lenovo 320-151AP

Could be anything, even a shorted DC-IN Mosfet. Are you used to work with a multimeter on Chip-Level?

[mon2]

Re: Lenovo 320-151AP

Vantage icon on screen says battery 100%.

Can you confirm that your battery is low but yet the screen reports the battery to be 100% ? If yes, then the SMBUS (I2C) lines should be reviewed.

Each battery pack has multiple pins for the V+ & GROUND. Also the same battery connector has:

SCL ; I2C bus clock line
SDA ; I2C bus data line

We are interested to review the voltage to ground on the above pins.

With your meter in DC volts mode (20V is ok) -> proceed to carefully,

red probe on pin to test
black probe to ground

Post each measurement. These tests will be on the battery connector itself, one pin at a time.

[Bazza]

Re: Lenovo 320-151AP

Hi, The battery connector still connected,
2 x reds = 07.60 volts
2 x green = 3.333 volts
1 x white = 0 zero on volts
1 x white = 0.002 volts at times goes to 0.001
2 x black = 0.000 volts`
With battery disconnected between red and black
Voltage 7.777 volts
Hope this helps
Regards Barry

[mon2]

Re: Lenovo 320-151AP

Battery icon is present but has X in the center, Vantage icon on screen says battery 100%.

If the battery is removed, does the logic board detect the absence of the battery?

[mon2]

Re: Lenovo 320-151AP

See attached. Is this your logic board ?

Lenovo 320-151AP

is really

Lenovo 320-15IAP

reference schematic: NMB301

[mon2]

Re: Lenovo 320-151AP

Also, see attached.

With caution, meter in DC voltage (20V or higher is OK), measure the voltage of each test point and post each measurement.

Often, as per the stick above by @Piernov, the 2nd DCin mosfet gets damaged (leaks). This often causes such faults or tanks the ACDRV boosted voltage.

Each of the DCin mosfets is an N-channel style so the GATE pin # 4 should be about 6 volts higher than the voltage passing through source / drain pins. The charger IC boosts the voltage of REGN pin and applies it to the ACDRV pin to enable the mosfets.

[Bazza]

Re: Lenovo 320-151AP

Hi All, Thank you all for the help.I have been checking things out, first of all the charger seemed faulty as I could not get any output, but this was possibly because of no load as I knew it worked, but all sorts of things were happening.
So decided to strip it down again, the light was flashing with charger I or removed, I tried to inject a charge into battery, but would not take it, so I connect the mains charger without battery, as before it worked fine, but the little orange light this time was not flashing, and all was working fine, except for a battery charge sign saying it was fully charged, so just deleted. I have now ordered a new battery as it seems the battery is giving false reports, so we will see what happens when the new battery arrives. May I just thank you to all that offered advice and help, it’s really appreciated.
Thank you
Barry

[Bazza]

Re: Lenovo 320-151AP

Hi All, Well I bought a new battery, fitted in and started to boot, no flashing light, got to user name and password, and yes it started to flash again. I can test a few things but unable to change a chip, not experienced in that yet. Could this have anything to do with windows, silly question I know, only it was doing it with charger plugged in no battery, then next time I tried it, mains adaptor only no flashing. So ordered battery, have not taken board out yet, as maybe a bad cap on the other side, maybe have to ring Lenovo, but last time they were useless, just working from a manual. Has anybody any ideas, poss not worth taking infor repair, it works fine just this rapid orange flashing light on charging port, thanks for all the help.
Barry