Laptop question: "Plugged in, not charging"

[hunter]

11. The % charge indicator is more of a "best guess" than a precise measure.

The only thing that matters is how long the computer will stay on from near full charge to the time a shutdown is forced because the battery is too low.

Lithium battery chargers have to be "smart" to prevent fires. An overcharged battery might catch fire, and a battery that is too deeply discharged may be damaged and might catch fire when it's recharged.

Reputable manufacturers do not want their products to catch fire so the "smart" battery charger tends to be conservative.

If the computer lasted, say, five hours on a charge when new, that time tends to get shorter as the batteries age. It's time to replace the batteries when the length of time the computer can run on battery power becomes annoyingly short. If you expect five hours from a battery, two hours may not be enough.

The smart charger in a computer, tablet, or phone, may also decide it's not safe to recharge a battery for various reasons. Again, this is a time to replace the battery and/or charger.

There's all sorts of nonsense related to faulty chargers, especially cheap no-name or counterfeit replacement chargers.

Over the years I've developed an intense loathing of batteries. For a while I got pretty good at opening the cases of iPods and replacing the batteries, but now I don't give a damn and hate all of these "personal electronics." I have a very old flip phone with a charge light that hasn't turned from red to "fully charged" green for maybe five years now, but the phone still works fine. It used to go four or five days without a charge if I didn't use it much, now it only goes two or three days. Oh well. I've got no plans to upgrade.