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56 Comments
- mbac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The Apple site does a good job of explaining how lithium ion batteries work, and how to keep them in good shape. Although of course they talk about their laptops and iPods, the info applies to al Li-ion batteries:
http://www.apple.com/batteries/
Extensive info & tips also here:
http://batteryuniversity.com/parttwo.htm - torindkflt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It's called the HP Battery Learning Utility, a modified version of a Win98 boot floppy. It's all automated: stick it in the floppy drive, then turn on the computer. Yeah it takes about six hours to finish, but it does its job, and it does it well.
The copy I have is designed specifically for my model of laptop, but I imagine HP has different versions for different models. I wouldn't doubt if other companies also have similar utilities for their laptops. If they do, most likely they can be downloaded from their websites. - Koskun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This works if it is a Ni-MH or Ni-Cadium. Those batteries are used in home cordless phones, laptops, and older cell phones.
Basically to have a chance to re-condition them is to drain them completely (turn off all power-saving features) and then fully recharge them. If the first time it doesn't work then try two more full discharges and recharges. Not using it at all during this process. If the battery is still bad after this then it has developed a memory that cannot be erased easily.
As to on the charger all the time, most laptops (and home phones) will stop charging the battery once it is fully charged. Leaving Ni-MH and Ni-Cadium batterys charging all the time can hurt them and make them develop a memory.
If you have a Li-Ion battery, which is what is used in all modern cell phones and some laptops, then leaving it on the charger all the time will not hurt it at all. What hurts Li-Ion batteries is letting them die out completely. - crazyazn5, on 07/20/2008, -0/+1AHH i was looking forward to the article... omg... ERRR i got a 404. ! =( page not found...
- inactive, on 01/13/2009, -0/+1sounds nice
http://www.babatek.com/original-hp-compaq-laptop-b ... - inactive, on 01/16/2009, -0/+1http://www.babatek.com/original-hp-compaq-laptop-b ...
http://www.babatek.com/original-hp-laptop-battery- ...
http://www.babatek.com - oziman, on 01/29/2008, -0/+1post is archived here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060103051724/http://w ... - Technojunkie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Use MobileMeter to check your battery's wear level:
http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Oakland/8259/
If should be less than 10% within the first year. Lithium ion batteries have a high premature failure rate though.
Batteries don't like heat, so if you bought a P4 notebook there's more than one reason why your battery life sucks. - inactive, on 10/17/2007, -0/+1Well yeah, the article is about 2 years old.
- torindkflt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1My laptop came with a utility I'm supposed to run every two months specifically for this purpose. It charges the battery all the way to full, drains it all the way to empty, then recharges it to full again. Afterwards it adjusts 0% and 100% accordingly, then displays whether any capacity has been lost or not. I just last week ran this on a new battery I got for my laptop, it works nicely.
- sofimi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i got a 404.
- trialblazer, on 09/14/2009, -0/+1The domain is up for sale! please bury this story.
- TentyLinux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I know for a fact that when you purchase an Acer laptop (notebook) they have instructions on how to take care of your battery. This is the same for mobile phones, so on the basis that people don't RTFM, I'll comment, but not digg this one.
- adkinsjm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Some BIOS also calibrate without the need to go into Windows.
- freonchill, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0so pretty much they are saying that if you fully drain a Li-Ion battery that it will reset its "max power memory"?
what about Li-Polymer/Ni-Cad? - crash331, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0all this does is reset the internal meter and lets the battery know how full it can get. if your battery sucks (which is usually does after 1-3 years) there is nothing you can do except buy a new one.
- warning9, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah, I have an HP Laptop... well it's a compaq laptop, but HP owns them so... I'll have to check it out! Thanks!
- cdmarcus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0My HD temp regularly gets to about 50 degrees celsius, don't know any other temps because I don't have any other monitors. Now I know not to get desktop processors in notebooks...
- warning9, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah, you'd be suprised.
- JKimball, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I thought newer batteries it was really bad for the battery to let it drop below 10%? I know my old laptop I was supposed to recalibrate and all, but I thought newer ones didn't need it
- warning9, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Cool, what is it called?
- warning9, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0That right there is exactly my story! but yeah... I don't have a floppy either.
- Philbert, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This is pretty cool, I'll have to try it. My laptop is less than a year old but when the battery dies it started just hibernating without any warning, then when I plug it in I see the warning "your battery is low you should switch to an outlet". I bet this would fix that. Thanks! It's an HP (Compaq Presario) so I'd look for that utility mentioned above, but I don't have a floppy drive.
- TheMJ, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0cool. I didn't know about this
dugg. - nicklinus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0IBM tells you to bring it down to 3% and that works great for me.
- jefferson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0so i checked the HP/Compaq Website and there is a battery recall. So thanks for this post and warning9 you should check this out and torindklft and philbers should get on this
- ketsugi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I have an odd situation where my laptop (Toshiba Satellite 2410) battery LED, and the Windows power utility, show the battery charge as full. But if I pull out the AC power cable, the laptop will shut off after anything between 5 seconds and a few minutes. No "shut down", it just completely loses power and turns off without any warning.
My laptop /is/ nearly 3 years old, though. - torindkflt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0New batteries do need calibrating. They lose some of their charge while they are in storage or on the shelf waiting to be sold, and this throws off the factory-preset calibration. The new battery I just recently got for my laptop was indicating 16% as full when I first got it. After running it through the calibration process, it now says 100% is full and 0% is empty.
Calibration may be a lengthy and tedious process, but it is necessary. - warning9, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0And it's worth it because you find out you had more battery power than you thought you had before. Especially if you have a new one.
- mousky, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Stay away from the "Battery Optimizer" program that is found on many HP computers. I ran this utility and it killed one of my batteries.
- gamer31, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0OMG thank you I bought a laptop a month ago and it had the problem since i bought it.
- wudaconcept, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0i have the same problem as bigbird a few messages above where my notebook battery is at 0% all the time no matter what i do. this is actually a replacement battery though that i bought because the older one was doing the same thing and when i first put it in, was actually at 54%. I tried calibrating using the directions from the hp website a few times only to end up where i am now. don't know what to try next. can anybody help?
- Echo5ive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0My Acer Travelmate is about a year old now, and my battery appears to be nearly dead. It shows up as 100% charged, but within 10 minutes the laptop just dies. No power saving shutdown, it just dies.
- webdwarf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I thought this was general knowlege.. I guess its a good guide for the un-aware. And the tip on removing power saving will make sure people completely drain the thing.
I haven't had any problems with my laptop as yet, but its only a few months old. I bought two batteries for it which I rotate every 2 weeks or so. Apparently when storing Lithium Ion batteries, you should have them about 1/3rd charge, but don't quote me on that. - terrya64, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0My Inspiron 8600 last about 4 hours, but I use it plugged in 99% of the time. Iv'e had it for a year and probably ran off the battery for about
30 hours. - stormy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I thought this was a great idea.
When I put my laptop on "aways on" and turned off warnings, it ran for 2 1/2 hours on the battery.
Put when I recharged it and started using it again, it died in less than 7 minutes.
(Which truth be told is about what it was doing) but why did it run for 2 1/2 hours while following the directions and then revert right back to being a dud? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0From the article:
"I’m not sure how much your supposed to do this, but I’m sure every three months would be a good time period."
I'll pass on taking advice from someone who, in the same sentence, admits that really are no expert on the topic then offers advice that they are "sure" of. - Philbert, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"You're supposed to do this anyways, you're not supposed to charge your battery if it still has life in it, otherwise you will kill it. Same with cell phones. No digg."
From what I understand from working at electronics stores this is not the case anymore, older batteries used to do this but they've fixed that problem. If that were the case you could only sync your PDA when the battery died. - FlyboyP, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This is kinda "duh" but then again I'm a tech person. Different battery chemistries require different maintenance. Koskun is correct in his comments. Bottom line is a decent battery should not fall below 80% capacity in a year, no matter how you neglect it. If it does, get a new one under warranty from the manufacturer.
- socket, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's recommended if you keep your laptop plugged in most of the time you deep cycle your battery at LEAST once a month. I would recommend two or three times a month to keep your battery extra healthy.
- kenji, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The web page seem to have been "dugg" to death. Can't access it now.
- noodleNT, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The new IBM Thinkpad Battery Maximizer software does this for you.
- warning9, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah the server died last night, I'll have it back up shortly.
- McZiggz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0my powerbook lasts about 4-5 hours :-)
- joe6996, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Cound not find 'HP Battery Learning Utility', can you please posted for download? I seach the internet and HP web pages, nothing.
- GreenApple123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I bought a replacement battery for my Acer laptop about a month ago from http://www.laptopsforless.com/laptopbattery/acer-battery
and it works great. Is there any reason to think that a replacement Acer laptop battery would be any worse than the manufacturers? My concern is the laptop battery fire risk, would this be a risk with a replacement battery? - vinaybs, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0but how to disable the bios calibrate utility it shows up every time i start the laptop
- anandsoft, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0The article is leading to 404 error when clicked!
- warning9, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0thats old news, the thing is, I applied and my computer matches the description perfectly, but when I put my computers serial number and my battery's serial number they say that my computer has not been affected. So I don't get it, I'm thinking about calling them.
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