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    Acer 5920: Battery meter lies!

    Discussion in 'Acer' started by dannywanny, Nov 15, 2008.

  1. dannywanny

    dannywanny Notebook Consultant

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    I've had my 5920 for just over 1 year, and I know that batteries age over time and so the length of time that I can run my laptop on battery decreases gradually. But this isn't really what is happening...

    My laptop battery has probably deteriorated very slightly over this 1 year, but in the past week it has been acting very strangely. On two occasions, the battery meter has shown about 50% left, and within 20minutes or so it has gone into hibernation, saying that 6% was left etc. So either the battery meter is lying, or the battery is discharging waaaaaay too quickly.

    I haven't "tested" it since, but after I plug the power back in, the battery charges again in 30mins or so (and the green battery light, indiciating 100% charged, is on). This is definitely faster than it used to take.

    So I'm not really sure what the problem is - the battery or the battery meter software / hardware monitors? Is my battery *dead* or can it be recovered with a few cycles of charge/discharge/charge/discharge?
     
    dannywanny, Nov 15, 2008
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  2. Tinderbox (UK)

    Tinderbox (UK) BAKED BEAN KING

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    Hi.

    Have you tried disabling the low battery shutdown , and see how long the battery lasts then, only problem is you will not know when the battery is going to die, and you might loose any work you are doing.

    At least that way, you will be able to tell if it`s the battery at fault or just the monitor chip inside the battery, as it could be giving you false readings.

    Normaly it`s best not to do a full discharge as it will shorted the battery life, but sometimes it is needed to re-calibrate the monitor chip inside the battery.

    In general it is best not to discharge below 40% if possible.



    Regards

    John.
     
    Tinderbox (UK), Nov 15, 2008
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  3. dannywanny

    dannywanny Notebook Consultant

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    I haven't tried disabling the low battery shutdown yet, but I will keep that in mind. I'm going to keep trying the battery over the next week - just discharging it from 100%-50/40% whilst surfing the internet etc. That might narrow the problem down for me - I might be able to find the point at which it goes into hibernation.

    Hopefully I can re-calibrate the monitor chip or the battery itself. Fingers crossed!

    Thanks for the help John. :)
     
    dannywanny, Nov 16, 2008
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