Forum Moderators: phranque
Yesterday after battery was 0%, charged all night and day some 16 hours. When pluged off charger and turned it on, it was some 87% (what means battery lost 13% without even being turned off). In 45 minutes watching a DVD reached 0% (and I couldn't see the end of movie).
I wonder if that is a normal issue or my battery though has only 3 months and very very few use, is screwed...
Enerygy managment was in HP recommendated.
How many charge and discharge cycles does battery has gone through (Avoid using battery as much as possible)
How much devices you are running , turn off all useless devices like bluetooth , LAN card etc
Make your monitor output to dim sort off as in laptop thats the major consumer of power.
Back up of 45 min seems reasonable if it gives backup of 1.5 hours normally and assuming you were watching movie with full graphics and effects etc.
You can just have talk with HP to be very sure
Constantly running the disc drive (laser/motor) off of battery definitely consumes more resources than just running programs.
Both batteries (I have an aux. battery in one of the Ultrabays) finally got to where they wouldn't charge past 10-20%.
It's good for 3 hours again.
One hint I came across is that if you are going to be using your notebook on wall power for an extended period, discharge the battery to 1/2 and then remove it. It's better to avoid keeping it topped-off constantly.
IBM is good about statistics - they tell you how many charge cycles, design capacity, current capacity, etc. You know it's time to replace when the current capacity is significantly below the design capacity.
Rechargeable batteries do lose charge just sitting there with no load. But not in less than a day! This is why non-rechargeable work out better in a mouse - the load is generally fairly low, so it is the self-discharge rate that controls how often you have to change the batteries. A set of non-rechargeables will last 3 months in my mouse - rechargeables only a couple of weeks.
It depends on what type of battery this is. If it's NIMH (nickel-metal-hydride,) your new pack may require a few cycles - charge to full as it will get, then discharge to approximately 20%, then recharge. It will begin to hold full capacity, for a longer time, after 5-10 cycles.
If it's a LIPO (Lithium polymer) these are handled very differently. Be SURE you are using only a LIPO compatible charger (presuming you replaced with an OEM, so this is most likely the case.)
LIPOs also improve with a few cycles, but it only requires 3-5 cycles to get full kick out of them. One thing that is very VERY important if you have LIPOs is to absolutely never over-discharge them. Discharging a lipo cell below 3.0 volts will damage it and future implications include explosion on recharge. Most computers intended to use LIPO will have fail safes built in to prevent this from happening, so it is entirely possible "0%" actually means 20% in real pack charge.
jtara is correct, for either of the above the pack should be stored with 30% resting capacity. If you're handy with a multimeter I can be more specific. :-) The exception is nicad batteries which should be drained almost completely to avoid forming cell memory, but it's not likely you'll see a nicad pack for a computer anywhere these days (except maybe in jtara's old beast.)
The absolute worst thing about computer cell technology is it's always one of those wall-wart transformer chargers. These are slow chargers that rob your packs of a good amount of power and life. In the RC hobby we always "fast charge" packs at the highest possible rate without damaging the pack. Slow charging packs will generally wear them out before their time, but unfortunately that's what you're stuck with.
That's good to know, though. My laptop is almost always charged fully when stored - I'll start to drain it before I stop using it.
Then again, I may just circumvent the whole issue and use a flux capacitor [en.wikipedia.org] as a power source. ;)
justgowithit, let's get something very clear. The flux capacitor is not a power source! It's what enables time travel and requires 1.21 jiggawatts. Dr. Brown uses nuclear fusion or lightning bolts for the power ;)
Wow this has gone off topic. Let's try to keep any future posts related to real devices lol.
The longest battery life out of the 6 we purchased is 1 hour and 20.
I've thought that we might go in for some *production batteries in a few 6 to 8 weeks from now (Feb) and throw the *starter batteries away.
Batteries that come with the new notebooks are alot like ink cartridges that come in with a new printer. They aren't made to last for very long.
Batteries that come with the new notebooks are alot like ink cartridges that come in with a new printer. They aren't made to last for very long.
My IBM batteries lasted 5 years. BTW, they are Li-Ion - advanced for their ancient time. :)
YMMV.
Follow the charge-discharge-charge cycle described in rocknbil's post above if no specific instructions came with your unit.
Jim
