Sony VPCEH - New 3rd party battery not working (No VAIO Care installed)

[SD8888]

Hi folks,

I recently contacted Sony about buying an official replacement battery for my VAIO VPCEH, and was advised there was only one official stockist of the VGP-BPS26, who sold the battery for £180 (E209/$239). This is a completely unacceptable scam, and amounts to profiteering. My laptop is worth £50 and nobody is paying £180 for a battery to a computer which was last produced 9 years ago.

So I had to buy a 3rd party battery at £20. The problem is that the VPCEH will not accept the battery. As soon as I installed it the orange power LED started blinking rapidly, and the laptop would not turn on. It turned on with the AC adaptor plugged in, but the status of the battery showed firstly an "X" then would not show an update on charge level.

The strange thing about this is that I have a completely fresh build of Windows 10 on this laptop, which doesn't have and Sony VAIO applications installed. I have read that this is due to the 3rd party battery management circuit being rejected by Sony ISB (Battery management) service, however I have searched and it is not present on my system. I wouldn't be, due to the fresh stock Windows 10 build I operate.

The original official battery drains rapidly, but the LEDs never blink rapidly like this when this is installed. The LED pattern for Low/Critical battery is a slow orange blink. When there is a safe capacity the LED is off.

This leads me to believe that such battery rejection is hard coded into the Sony INSYDE BIOS. I am running INSYDE R0200Z9. Can anyone tell me how to fix this? Or does anyone have any more information?

Thank you

[The_Black_Rose]

Hi SD8888,

I don't think that using a 3rd party is going to work to be quite frank. Besides, not all of the VAIO laptops are compatible with Windows 10. I recommend checking the compatibility first using this link: http://bit.ly/2UGX4JW.

Cheers,

The_Black_Rose

[Blencogo · Accepted solution]

Hi SD8888

No good news sadly!

Sony say that only OEM bateries are compatible. There is a chip on the power board inside the battery and this is checked by the BIOS. Sony lock down the BIOS to hide and prevent many changes.

Some unscrupulous sellers even provide a BIOS Update which effectively 'bricks' the Vaio in the instances I have heard about.

Unless someone with experience of making a third party battery work can recommend a seller it will be better to buy a 'genuine' battery. I see some on eBay for around £80. I don't know the sellers so can't recommend them but I would think you would be covered by eBay's money back guarantee if it is offered as 'new' and 'genuine'.

[SD8888]

Thanks for the info, I had dreaded that being the answer.

I understand Sony's intent in making sure that only safe, Sony-commissioned and tested batteries are used in their products, but for that to be implemented there has to be a competitive supply of Sony replacement batteries.

Instead there is one single supplier in the entire European continent, who want to charge customers £180 for 9-year old stock. And so I've been left with no option but to buy one of these untested batteries for £20 (more than enough for 6 Li-ion cells).

Well perhaps one day Sony will look at providing an INSYDE BIOS update for the VPCEH series which has the battery-checker disabled, or better still, a fully unlocked BIOS with customisable options. I've just upgraded mine to an i7, 8GB RAM, .11ac Wi-Fi card and an SSD and it's running like a dream, literally the last step was replacing the withered battery. Sony should be doing so much better than this.

[Win_88]

Hi there,

I know how frustrating this is but keep in mind that you're looking for a part that's probably been years out of production as your laptop is an old model. But if you spent that much time to upgrade it as you mentioned in your last reply, I wouldn't really risk it with a dodgy battery to be honest.

As far as I know, Sony no longer operate as retailers, so they only handle the manufacturing part of the deal. The prices and stock are more related to retailers, unfortunately.

Win_88