Laptop Battery does not show true charging level

It is possible to charge the battery without a laptop. But doing this is dangerous.

You would need to Google the make of the battery and find the pin out diagram of the battery in question. What you are looking for is the + and - terminals on the battery. But this is something I would definitely not recommend.

What I would suggest though, is that you take apart the laptop and see what is broken in side the laptop. There may be a change the socket where the AC goes in to has come loose and that you can simply solder this back on to the circuit board.

There isn't much else you can do though, I wouldn't recommend charging the laptop battery without a laptop though.

The Windows battery meter in the system tray might not accurately display the charge level of the battery, to have it calibrated you can use the steps bellow (may take several hours):

Note: Do not use the computer during the calibration cycle.

Step by Step:

1. First turn off your screensaver and other power management settings that put the computer to sleep.

2. Then fully charge the laptop battery;

3. Unplug the power cord;

4. Let it run all the way down until the computer shuts off automatically.

5. Once fully drained, you can charge it back up again and restore your screensaver and power management settings.

Additional information and more elaborated methods can be found at:

HP - Calibrating the Notebook Battery (Windows Vista)

^{works equally for other laptop brands.}