M17 how to calibrate the battery?

I'm having some problems with my M17 battery. At 100% it shows up with 35minutes. when it reaches 0% the battery continues for about 1 hour. I've tried to calibrate the battery by fully discharging it and fully charging it but it just doesn't work.... it always shows up with about 35min with 100%
How do I calibrate the battery?

 

i thought i was the only one that realized this the batterie discharge to 0% and then it continue for about 1 hours if on high perf and to infinity and beyond if you use an optimised power plan i haven't found yet how to balance but i found use for this 0 point power XD


mine actualy display 53 minutes



but if any one found a better way to display the batterie life with the m17 please share

 

I've the problem on xp x86/64, vista ultimatem on optimised plan or whatever etc. it's really annoying! not to known how long the battery will last...
mine is showing now 96% 38min.... :s but it always last for about 1:30-2:00...

 

mine say 96% 53 min but then it reache 0% after 50 some min and then it stay open for 1 hours on high perf and even longer in powesaver
on vista x64

win7 x86 does the same also

 

http://www.smartcomputing.com/edito...cle=articles/2007/s1804/36s04/36s04.asp&guid=

If you're lazy and don't want to read all that here is the steps:

1. Fully Charge Battery
2. Unplug laptop
3. Let battery drain until laptop shuts off
4. Plug laptop back in until fully charged
5. Turn on laptop

 

Smart lions have a sensor inside that esitmates remaining battery life and the os reads off that sensor to display it in minuites. I'd say the sensor(and as such the battery) is defective if you already tried a full cycle charge.

 

I've already done that several times and it just doesn't work. That's why I made this topic.

 

I would call dell at this point, the battery seems defective at reporting accurate life remaining.. Do the 5 LED lights work accurately?

 

the m17 was not that modified by dell and don't actualy have any led on the batterie

 

the thing is that the battery works okay. it provides 1:30 to 2:00 of battery time without failling. the problem is really calibrating it...

 

same you can use it for 2 hours but after 1 it say 0% and you don't know when it will fail

 

The battery is calibrated if you get sufficient battery life, that's the whole point of 'calibration' since li-ions retain a memory over time which reduces effective life(which isn't happenig here).
incorrect reporting of time remaining is a completly different issue as ive said. It's defective, contact Dell for a replacement.

 

Recalibrate the Smart Battery

Check that the system is on AC power (see 1. above).
Switch off the system.
Leave the system overnight (eight hours) to charge.
Switch on the system and check that the system is still on AC power (see above).
In Control Panel, Performance and Maintenance, Power Options, and change the Power Scheme to Always On. Then change the 'Running on Batteries' settings to all say 'Never' and click on 'OK'.
Click on the Power Meter tab, and check that the battery is at 100%.
Now remove the AC adaptor plug and switch off the AC adaptor power at the mains supply.
Time how long the system remains powered. You can use a utility to log the time to the hard disk at regular intervals (see Other Useful Articles below).
After the system has switched itself off (usually by a self-controlled 'Shutdown'), connect the AC adaptor again and switch on the power to recharge the battery.
Leave for eight hours to fully recharge.


Using BatCal.exe
When using the BatCal.exe calibration assistance utility, you may see the following message:

'The previous run lasted for XXX minutes before the battery ran out of charge.
Note: This time is not an accurate measure of battery life, to do this, you need to run a BatteryMark test after calibrating the battery.'

This message simply means that Bat-Cal is not a battery life test tool and is not designed to give a meaningful measure of how long a notebook will last on a fully charged battery.

Battery benchmark programs (such as BatteryMark) simulate the use given to the processor, memory and various other parts by an average 'real' user over a period of time. For instance, whilst typing in a text application, the hard disk and CD-ROM would be powered down and the CPU would be running quite slowly, but whilst performing calculations on a hard disk database or displaying DVD video movies, the system will be working quite hard. BatteryMark is an accepted benchmark program for measuring the 'battery life' of a notebook by simulating a range of these different activities.

For instance, on a brand new system:

If using a word processor, the batteries may last for three hours.
If watching a DVD movie from a DVD player, the batteries may only last for one hour and 45 minutes.
BatteryMark may give a result of two hours and 15 minutes.
Bat_Cal.exe does not produce results that can be compared with BatteryMark or any other battery benchmark program.

You can however, use Bat_Cal to compare batteries by using the same notebook but replacing the battery with another each time you run Bat_Cal. You must remember to keep the display brightness, power saving settings and all other factors constant on each test run.


About battery calibration
Battery calibration does not recondition the battery cells but merely allows the notebook 'Smart' circuitry to accurately predict how much charge the battery is holding at any time. Battery calibration 'teaches' the Smart battery so that it can assess how long the battery will last if fully charged - it will then show the amount of remaining charge more accurately on future charges.

A battery that has gone out of calibration may, for example, show 90% charge remaining when there is, in fact, less charge actually remaining. This may show itself when a notebook suddenly powers down while it reports a reasonable percentage of capacity still remaining. Alternatively, the Windows battery power meter may show hardly any charge remaining after only say 1.5 hours of use, but the battery is only six months old, was fully charged and used to last much longer a few months previously.

If you are unsure how to recalibrate your battery, the BatCal utility below will guide you through the steps you need to take. If you are not going to use the notebook, you can use the Fast Discharge option so that the charge will be used up quickly. If you wish to use the notebook during the battery discharge sequence, use the Slow Discharge option (or simply Exit the utility). This utility can be used on any tablet PC or notebook and simply guides you through a full charge - full discharge - full charge cycle