Laptop battery charging strangeness

Factual Questions
1

Last week I bought a 14-in HP laptop at CostCo and have been using it a few hours a day since then. Following the directions I plugged it before turning it on the first time. Sure enough, the battery was down and the Charging icon was lit so I left it plugged in while I transferred bookmarks and did other chores. When I saw it was topped off I unplugged it and used it quite a few hours until the battery dropped to 30%. Closing it up I plugged the power back in, getting a tiny orange light by the cord, and went to bed.

The next afternoon I come up to it and the light is still orange. Huh. You’d think it’d change color when it was full. I unplug it, open it up, and the battery’s still at 30%. WTH? I plug the power in and it starts charging. It reaches 100%, I unplug it and draw it down to 70%. Close up, plug in, get orange light. Look after a few hours and it’s still orange. Open and check and it’s still 70%.

I poke around the system settings and find nothing pointing to charging options. Not finding anything else to change, I make the actions for Press Power Button to Turn Off and Close to Hibernate – they’d both been Sleep before. Close it up, plug it in and get the orange light.

This morning it’s white. I haven’t checked (this is on my desktop) but I’m guessing it is fully charged. Assuming this was some sort of weird setting cooked up by Microsoft and/or HP, I’m still puzzling over why the factory default would not lead to the battery getting charged when the power cord is plugged in regardless of what the laptop is doing.

Any thoughts?

2

I haven’t heard of this happening but Costco includes free tech support with laptops it sells, plus it will still be under HP warranty. I would call one of them to see if this is as-designed or if it’s a flaw.

3

I played with it yesterday and, as I suspected, the white light means the charge is full and further, setting the lid closure and power switch settings to Sleep will not let charge but Hibernate will.

I’m not coming up with a reason why anyone would want to plug in a laptop and not have it charge, never mind where the controls are. I think you’re right, a call to the CostCo concierge is in order.

4

I have never had a laptop that was not charging the entire time it was plugged in, regardless of the state of the machine. And I cannot think of a reason the designer would not want this to be the case. But they’ve come up with crazier things, like those power plugs with extra proprietary contacts that prevent the use of aftermarket chargers.