Laptop Battery Degrading!

Conor108

My laptop battery seems to hold way less of a charge then it did when I got it. I only got in October (6 months-ish) and I turned it on at 2pm today and there is now 23% left at 4:25pm. It's a Dell Vostro 1000 and its a 9-cell Sanyo battery. Even on 'Max Battery' setting I seem to have way less than when i got it.

Now I now batterys will degrade but this seems like too much too fast. Sure I'd have 6 or 7 hours back in October.

I don't use the battery while charging it and usually let it drain a good bit (3-5%) before re-charging.

Any ideas whats up?

Tom Dunne

That's pretty bad.

Do a full discharge - i.e. turn off all power options in Windows (e.g. shutdown laptop when power reaches 3% or whatever), keep the laptop on until it simply cuts out due to the battery being exhausted.

Then do a full charge. Repeat this a few times. I have often run my laptop at 0% battery power for 10-15 minutes. Windows seems to get it's calibration of power left wrong. As does Linux, which is what I am using.

Overheal

wow did I just miss the bus or something?

I have a 12-cell in my HP machine (its 15.4") and have never got more than a max of I'd say 5 hours.

shutterspeed

sorry if this has been asked before but were's the best place to buy a new battery ??

my packard bell mv51-120 easynote is having the same problem

Alanstrainor

shutterspeed wrote: »

sorry if this has been asked before but were's the best place to buy a new battery ??

my packard bell mv51-120 easynote is having the same problem

Ebay, much cheaper than buying straight off the manufacturer. Check the sellers feedback rating and all that before buying though.

fatal

Its probably too late for your current battery,but for your new battery,everytime you are close to a socket,take out the battery and use the plug to power the laptop.Try only to use the battery when theres no socket available.Battery should last you ages then

pwd

Tom Dunne wrote: »

That's pretty bad.

Do a full discharge - i.e. turn off all power options in Windows (e.g. shutdown laptop when power reaches 3% or whatever), keep the laptop on until it simply cuts out due to the battery being exhausted.

Then do a full charge. Repeat this a few times. I have often run my laptop at 0% battery power for 10-15 minutes. Windows seems to get it's calibration of power left wrong. As does Linux, which is what I am using.

yeah that should help with a lithium ion battery.

Lithium batteries degrade quite badly if they aren't regularly discharged/recharged fully.

Capt'n Midnight

fatal wrote: »

Its probably too late for your current battery,but for your new battery,everytime you are close to a socket,take out the battery and use the plug to power the laptop.Try only to use the battery when theres no socket available.Battery should last you ages then

Yes overcharging is a big killer
Depends on the laptop though, I've found my tosh quite good in that respect

Best to leave the battery at 40% charged , in a waterproof bag in the fridge if you want to extend it's shelf life. Or you could use it.

Would recommend draining it once per month, but not get too upset if you don't

Li has NO memory effect so don't worry about that or having to drain all the way down between each charge.

As far as draining for calibration, it does NOT re-form the cells, just wears them out a little bit more. It's only the software that learns the battery life again not the electronics on the cell , bit of a waste really as it just waits till the cell reaches a certain voltage.

Yes you can rebuild cells in a battery
no you can't do this safely unless the battery is in a DRY bucket buried in a bucket of sand outside and somehow wired back in to the laptop , after a few cycles of testing it might be ok .