Are you a proud HP laptop owner? Or a owner that suffers from a lot of issues these semi-expensive beauties give to you? Well I can assure you that you aren’t the only one here, myself I own a HP Pavilion Entertainment PC (DV5 series) which at the time cost me a nice sum of £550, this was like two years ago when I purchased this laptop from my local Currys store which I must mention had a lot of issues after-sale such as a chip in the screen which the store highly accused me of being a careless owner – as if I treat all my gadgets with great care as possible and what would I benefit from a damaging a £550 gadget?! Anyway’s that was solved further down the line and other issues occurred with the machine itself (electrical & mechanical issues) which I won’t talk about today, as this article is focused on the wonderful HP error code 601/602 which usually shows firstly before the machine reaches the ‘POST’ screen which says as exact:
HP Battery Alert
The system has detected the storage capacity of the battery stated below to be very low. For optimal performance, this battery may need to be replaced.
Primary (internal) Battery (601)
ENTER – Continue Startup
For more information, please visit www.hp.com/go/techcenter/startup
And most noticed once you logged into Windows 7 (if you are using this version of course) you will see this on your taskbar:
An icon indicating that the laptop is hooked up via the mains (obviously) and the battery has a red X on it saying the battery isn’t getting charged, also if you hover over this icon Windows will tell you ‘Consider replacing the battery…’ how considerate of Microsoft to say that eh? Let’s not go there!
Now what can you do to solve this issue? Most obviously either contact HP about it or go to the place where you brought the laptop from and seek advice on what you need to do. As for me I intend to take a drive to my local Maplin store tomorrow and get better advice and what I should do.
And when I have done that I will most likely update this article with a better solution on what to do with this issue, so until then just continue using you machine (that’s if your suffering from this issue too!).
- Late update – 10/03/2011
I spoke to someone in my local Maplin store yesterday and it was between the internal battery (CMOS Battery) but then there was a debate on that, if it was that battery then the date/time would have problems and so on but I have no problem with that as my date/time is spot on!
So the only other battery is the external battery (the battery that is removable from under the laptop) which is most noticeable is NOT holding it’s charge, as soon as the mains adapter is disconnected from the laptop it will instantly shut off as there’s power in the battery.
So the error that the laptop is providing is kind of misleading in terms of saying ‘internal’ when really it isn’t it’s the external battery! So the error code for this would be 602 not 601 – however I could be entirely wrong on this!
On that note I am looking into this further before I start pointing fingers at different things within the laptop, if you have experienced this before and know exactly what it is then feel to comment below!
any solution on it?
The error it’s providing is a misleading error which tells you it’s the motherboard battery which works fine, the funny thing is when the external battery is removed the error disappears. So the only solution is to replace the external battery with the replacement serial number it provides on the sticker.
It should say ‘Replace with ……’ or you could contact HP to check if it’s a recall which I was told it could be a recall, are you suffering from the same issue?
i m also facing the same problem. in my hp laptop (dv4 series) which is around one and half year old, the windows was reporting about the bad battery . and i am also getting very less backup time and ready to replace that main battery found just inside the back cover. but from yesterday only the bios started reporting at the booting time about “internal battery (601)” problem. so i am confused now. should i replace the cmos battery also?
b k baruah, guwahati, assam (india)
I would suggest you contact HP to see if it’s a “recall” machine if it is then they should sort you out, however if you do not want to mess about with HP directly and have the money to replace the ‘External’ and ‘Internal’ battery then go ahead but make sure you replace the CMOS Battery correctly. Also take into mind that removing the current CMOS Battery it will clear the BIOS of any user-defined settings and will be set back to factory settings.
If you need help with removing the CMOS Battery then please don’t hesitate to request a tutorial on it on here!
Thanks,
Ben
I am having to the same issue. I have the HP Pavilion Entertainment PC dv6-2066dx Entertainment Notebook, and like Biju, I started having this issue exactly 1 1/2 year after purchase (I never bother to renew my 1 year warranty). I contact HP today, and spoke with a rep who told me I had to extend my warranty for them to diagnose the problem, but for some reason the rep was having problems with my credit card, so I made arrangement to speak with him tomorrow, so I started googling the problem. Ben, how would I know if my laptop was part of a recall, and what should I do, if it is such? I know this post is a bit old, but were you able to resolve the issue? HELP!!!
Hi RenRobe29,
I’m sorry to hear your having issues with HP, but back on subject the only way to find out if your laptop is a recall is to speak to HP Customer Services and provide them with the model number/serial number that’s printed underneath the laptop.
To your question did I resolve this issue, the answer is yes I did by contacting ‘The Tech Guys’ which I have a monthly insurance with they simply tested my unit to see if it was self-abuse or simple hardware failure which it was hardware failure.
If you have like house content insurance either with your bank or with a third-party company I suggest ringing them and make a claim to save you some pennies, but before that I would suggest contacting HP first and check if it is a recall if it is then HP should replace the battery for free.
If you need further help with this then don’t hesitate to comment back!
Regards,
Ben
601 refers to the internal battery, the primary battery of your laptop (so not the CMOS battery). 602 refers to the external, secondary, battery which on some HP laptops, like mine (8530w) can be mounted underneath the laptop for additional power.
Unfortunately my external battery broke a few weeks ago, it was completely fine, and then from one moment to the next it could only sustain my laptop for 10/15 minutes instead of the 3,5 hours the day before..
@e18a81e6e1cdfc5420d2e06f2b107e19:disqus Thanks for your informative comment on the two error codes, however in my case when mine was not working was providing a misleading error code because the laptop was fine with the external battery removed (602) as you said the batteries that can be mounted underneath.
However, the battery would not hold any charge whatsoever so it was obvious the battery had expired it’s lifespan and for your just lucky that your battery could keep the laptop powered for 10/15 minutes whereas mine as soon as you removed the AC adapter the laptop would loose power immediately.
I had the same error message. My computer stopped turning on completely!I replaced the internal battery and it's still. It turning on!
Yes i am getting this message also on one of my Pavilion dv6 laptops. I agree i tend to think it is the external battery the one directly under the laptop. This same laptop also runs VERY hot and sometimes shuts down because it gets so hot. I have updated the BIOS which was meant to address this issue but it hasn't. My other Pavilion dv6 doesn't have any of these issues (I should state that they were purchased 12mths apart – with the problem laptop being the first one i purchased back in about April 2010). Although it was all working fine for the first 12mths so not too sure why now it is having problems.
i had this pblm..what can i do for this? is it i need to change my battery?
Hi Rahul,
Yes, simply by replacing the external battery will 9 out of 10 will cure the problem – I did this myself a month ago on the same issue with another HP laptop and solved the problem. However, if it doesn't solve it then you may need to replace the internal battery but this is very rare to replace that battery.
If you need anymore help, then please don't hesitate to ask