A few questions first :

You said that you have " have a new battery and external charger " : did you
1. have this problem
and
2. bought the new battery and external charger to fix it ?

If so, prior to this , did it also charge to 3% ?

My reason for asking is that I worked for Compaq for years and it was common
for a lot of the batteries to " appear fully charged" meaning that the
customer would press the button on the battery and the indicators would
indicate that it was fully charged, when it really was a bad battery and
would not accept a charge. There's 2 "parts of the battery" the "charging
part" and the "reservoir part". Sounds like your charging section is dead.
OR the chemicals in there won't hold a charge (too old) = same result = NG
to you. . If it's something you bought "new" , have them send you another.
There were a LOT of problems with batteries for the 7400,7800,m700 etc - all
the same vintage. Often it would prevent the PC from powering up - it would
pull down the voltage of the laptop. you pop out the battery, power up and
then reinsert and it was OK - but it wouldn't charge.

bobb


"Damien" wrote in message
rthlink.net...

I have a Compaq Armada 7800. With the power cord connected the laptop
runs
fine and power management reports only 3% of the battery is full and that
it
is still charging when in fact its not. I have a new battery and external
charger so I know the battery is good and fully charged, also the laptop
will charge the battery with no problem too. Its when I try to power up
the
laptop with the just the battery, the laptop will boot and I see the
Compaq
screen then the laptop will shut off and will not power up again until I
remove the battery and slide it back in the laptop will power up again and
shut off everytime at the Compaq screen. I have tried both bays with the
new
battery just to get the same end result.

Is the problem in the system board or could it be the power supply.
Thanks
for any help...