Battery maximum charge level

Hi first post here

I have just got an Acer 1810TZ with the 6 cell 5600mah battery and have set up my own power plan and am easily getting 7 - 8 hours so no complaints there.

However I notice when I run the ms powercfg - energy app or BatteryBar v3.3.1 they both shows a max input of 60,340 mWh and a max capacity of 62,160 mWh. This is after only 1 or 2 charges from new. I let the battery run down to the Low battery level at which time it shuts down.

I have set it up for when on battery use the levels for Low,Critical and Reserve Battery are set to 1%.

How can I get a full charge to the reported 62,160mWh or is this normal/acceptable

Battery Info:
Battery ID 3002SANYOUM09E36
Manufacturer SANYO
Serial Number 3002

Thanks

 

Update - let the battery run right down to about 1.5% and then machine turned itself off. Recharged for about 14 hours overnight and when turned on it is showing:

Design Capacity 62160
Last Full Charge 57010

So am not getting anywhere like a full charge - IE battery "wear" is 8.3%

Is the battery faulty and if so what is warranty on a new battery - machine was bought about 6 weeks ago and has only had about 4- 5 full charges IE after completely running down.

Thanks

 

you need to run down your battery completely, as in when you hit 1.5% in windows, reboot into the bios and leave it on till your battery dies. Charge it up and report back what the wear level is

 

ah...... lithium ion batts are never supposed to be totally drained. that's bad for the battery.

 

All Li-ion and Li-po laptop batteries have protection circutry to prevent the cells dropping below critical voltages.

 

even my 4810t battery had same issue
2 days back battery bar was showing 5.2% battery wear(approx 59000)
now it says 3.7% wear ....(now approx 60340)
hows that?

 

I understand this and I have set the Critical Level in the Power Plan to 1% but cannot see how this is affecting my issue. This would/should not prevent the battery being fully charged. It seems there is something in the BIOS that is preventing the battery reaching it's full reported capacity of 62,160 mWh

Would a later BIOS, mine is 3115, possibly address this issue

 

You are worrying over nothing... no software can accurately determine the charge level to the accuracy you talk about.
Batteries are chemical devices... capacity is affected greatly by temperature etc.

By all means check it, but view it as a long term thing over weeks, months and years to get a true picture.

 

people always mistaken li-on batt(laptop, handphone) as normal AA, AAA batt.

agreed wit MDR8850, Jay_d.

 

Some anecdotal evidence that MDR8850 is correct in his assertion.

My brother and I both got identical atom netbooks back in June of 2009 (By the way, I HATE atom netbooks now - thank goodness for my new CULV netbooks. Can't wait for a CULV/Ion2 combo to be realeased in Q2.)

We both did a full calibration charge initially - charged the battery to 100% overnight, ran it down to 1%, and then recharged it to 100%.

Both batteries showed very similar performance initially (about 5 hours of usage, IIRC.) And we continued a recalibration once a month

After that, we had vastly different charging strategies.

He let the battery drop to 5% or lower before fully charging the battery back to 100%).

I had my laptop either shutdown or charge up when the battery charge dropped to the 20% level. I also unplugged the laptop when the batteries were charged to around 80%.

This allowed me to get roughly 3 hours of usage before I charged the batteries, while it allowed him roughly 5 hours per charge.


It's been roughly 6 months since we got our netbooks. I've probably had more usage on my netbook and I've probably had my batteries go through 2-3x more charge cycles that my brother has gone through.

Now here is the kicker:

On a full battery charge, my brother can get a bit less than 4 hours (even after calibration) of typical usage, while I get close to 5 hours on my battery.


So, with my new netbooks, I'm going to be following the 20/80 rule, doing a full-cycle calibration once a month. I just wish there was some way to program the laptop to stop charging when the battery charge read 80%....

 

So do I and I sold my Asus 900HA to buy th1810TZ and very glad that I did.

I will try the 20/80 idea and see what happens.

Also what is warranty on a battery less than 2 months old and what would consider to be faulty.

Thanks

 

Could others who have the 1810TZ report on their battery wear and overall performance

Thanks

 

may also be because of different tasks/software are running in the background or different settings i the energy plan.

 

Exactly different brightness, different AV running... a 101 things.
Come back in 3 years and tell us all how it's doing... you are all fretting over nothing.

 

I don't think you should be concerned about stopping the charge at 80%.. I only did that because the "80%/20% charge window" coincided with my daily schedule, so by the time my morning obligations were over, the battery was down to about 20%, and by the time my afternoon work started, my charge was back to 80%, and so on. Otherwise, the laptop was idle/asleep with the battery charged somewhere between that value.


I think most batteries bundled with laptops in the US and Canada carry a 1yr warranty. You would have to call the specific vendor to find out about the specifics on what they consider to be a defective battery.

Hmm, I'm not sure if that's really the case here...

Software installed was the same. We both used those crappy netbooks for websurfing, email, office, and youtube/videos. Power schemes were the same as well.

Can the minor differences in software and internet usage really account for a battery wear discrepancy of over 25% between two machines in just 6 months? If anything, I was the more demanding user and my battery should have been the one that showed more wear (I had more charge cycles, I drained the battery faster, etc, while he had his machine on idle or in sleep mode more often.

In fact, I was so surprised about the battery results, that I swapped our two batteries to see if it was just some calibration error. That just confirmed that his battery had more wear.

Who knows... maybe it's a defective battery? ... I still have 6 months to have it sent in for replacement.

 

If you want to know it then try the free BatteryBar software and tell us what you have found out. http://osirisdevelopment.com/BatteryBar/index.html

 

My former Samsung N120 has such a thing (Max 80% charge) and it was software based!

Check out this review, about half way down the page it's called the Samsung Battery Life Extender. Available here off their drivers/software page. I Will try this on my Acer to see if this works, or bug some CPSC majors to see if it can be ported for us. (Hopefully the compatable Bios list can be expanded, without an actual Bios update?)

 

I got really bad results from battery bar.

Battery Wear on battery #1 23.4% of 51260
capacity 39265

Battery Wear on battery #2 6.2% of 51260
capacity 48080


Hmm, my first battery seems worse than I expected and my second battery is better than I expected.

That software solution for the samsung is exactly what I need...

ETA: Just rechecked batterybar results and the wear levels keep fluctuating by as much as 7% so take those results with a grain of salt until i do a test with proper calibration next month.

 

I will check out the Samsung links but am confused a bit as cannot see why a particular task should increase/decrease battery wear. I would have thought that the wear component just measures the maximum charge accepted divided by maximimum design capacity. Problem as I see it is in readingg the correct info from the battery.

Is there a windows utility that will accurately measure the capacity of the battery or is this an ACER bios thing. On that point would a later bios make any difference - I am on 3115 on my 1810TZ. powercfg -energy reports the same last charge as BatteryBar so obviously reading from the same source.

 

Did you get a chance to try the Samsung utility on your Acer

 

Rather than start a new thread thought I'd ask this here:

I just got an 1810t and I let the battery drain all the way, then I charged it up to 100%, when it hit 100% I took the battery out...this is good for the battery right? Every time the battery is at capacity and I'm plugged in I should take it out to prolong its life?

Also, would leaving the battery out for excessive time have any adverse effects? Thanks!

 

This is all theoretical, but I've been told that if one wants to keep the battery in tip-top condition, one should not drain the battery below a 20% charge (unless it's going through a monthly calibration cycle) and one should charge it up to 80% (again, unless it's going through a monthly calibration cycle.) Additionally, when the AC is plugged in, the battery should be removed and stored in a cool, dry environment (ideally, the unplugged battery should have a 40% charge level.) Finally, the battery should be "thawed" to room temperature when being plugged into the laptop.

Or you can just not worry about it, and buy a new battery in 2-3 years (or a new laptop, for that matter.)

 

Guys, my battery needs some work done to it! I've had it for like a year, and batterybar says its worn like 30.2%! Can only run for like 1hr 10mins on balanced. For months I'd keep it plugged it even when the battery was full. When should you start recharging the battery? At what %?