laptop battery woes

[wheel]

I bought an Acer laptop a year or so ago. It sat plugged in for about 6 months, maybe a bit longer. Basically I used it in the evenings while I was watching TV.

Then we let it sit, unplugged and unused, for about 6 months.

Now when the machine is unplugged, battery power goes from 100% to shutdown in about 30 seconds.

Is the battery toast? Or is this one of those things that can be recovered from?

[netmeg]

I am SO over Acer. I've had battery / power problems with at least SIX different laptops in the past two years, belonging to me, my mother, my sister, my partner at work, his kid - the list goes on. I've had bad batteries, bad power cords, and machines that won't shut down unless you just let the battery run out. Most of happened seconds after the warranty ran out, but the one which was UNDER warranty - they sent new battery, that didn't work, they sent new power cord, that didn't work. They finally gave up and offered to send us a recon replacement, but by that time we felt we couldn't depend on the Acer brand.

Sorry if this doesn't directly address your question. But my advice would be to start watching on deals for alternative laptops.

[Brett_Tabke]

Sounds about right. I would bet by now you have figured out what is going on.

Even when a computer is on power cord power, it is drawing from the battery. The electricity basically runs from the cord to the battery, and then the battery to the computer. So the battery is constantly being charged, and used (even when plugged in).

So you have heard of the battery memory effect? That is what is going on - you trained your battery to only charge a little bit.

You might be able to bring it back a bit by:

a) turn your power settings to not warn you or tell you when your machine runs out of power.
b) turn off EVERYTHING on the machine. Every app, virus checker - anything at all that is running. (so a crashing windows - won't matter).
c) fire up your machine and unplug it.
d) after it dies - plug it back in for a half hour to charge up (leave it off).
e) repeat back to c about 10 times.

That might bring your battery back to life.

For a variation on the above. Put your battery into the freezer for 30 minutes between attempts at bringing it back to life. (also, if you have the patience, power it up to your bios screen and stop there until it runs out of power. That way, you don't risk a crashing windows writing to disk - just as your battery runs out...)

[mack]

What Brett says is pretty spot on. I had a similar issue with my phone battery, because I use it a lot for sharing net connection with my laptop it spend quite a lot of its time being charged (usb connected) the battery life started to become noticably shorter. By using the phone until the battery was about to die them charging I was able to get the battery life back to a reasonable time.

With a lot of rechargeable devices its important not to charge it until it actual needs it. Let the battery go through a full cycle from charged to discharged then recharge.

Mack.

[tangor]

Brett's right. You need to deplete the battery from time to time (the manual even states that) and you should be good for 1,000 to 1,500 charges. The batteries will NOT last forever, but will give good performance if EXERCISED.

[ergophobe]

And now that you know the cause....

I've had really good luck with cheap, after-market batteries on EBay. Usually for something like 1/4 - 1/3 the price that HP, Lenovo or whatever wants for their branded battery and typically with 10% to 20% more mAH.

[Tara101]

I almost bought that Laptop! Good to know wooooh

[incrediBILL]

I almost bought that Laptop! Good to know wooooh

Not sure it's a specific laptop, could just be one bad in a batch.

We've had many brands, lots of HPs, wife's last HP laptop was quite the lemon, while my new HP netbook is very solid, it rocks!

However, she rarely used her big laptop as a laptop, left it plugged in all the time and completely destroyed two batteries.

Those things MUST discharge as she learned the hard way :)

As far as hardware goes, I'm a big fan of buying electronics from Costco because if you get a lemon you can return it for any reason within 90 days, no questions asked. Not only that, they double the warranty (2 years) and provide Costco Concierge tech support service for free.

So if you get a machine with bad battery life you simply take it back and get something better which makes picking a new computer virtually risk free.

[inspiroHost]

I m using Dell 1440 and my battery lasted for almost a year. Now I cannot use my laptop without having it plugged in. The battery is so weak, it's only at 13% and wouldn't charge anymore. Gotta replace it but not finding the time :(

[edited by: engine at 3:03 pm (utc) on Nov 30, 2010]

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