General question about charging battery.

Hey all, I was just wondering. I know it's best to always drain the battery down to 0%(full discharge) before recharging Li-Ion batteries but what if let's say I am in class and class ends and I still have 40-60% battery life? Is it best to just let it run dry or can I put it into hibernation and use it later? Or should I charge it back up to 100% in my dorm room?

BTW, I'm kind of scared that some punk is gonna steal my notebook when I'm not around...Should I lock it to my desk while sleeping lol?

 

If you are living in a dorm enviornment, get a notebook lock. I suggest the ComboSaver lock by Kensington. You don't have to worry about keys.

As far as the battery is concerned, theoretically there isn't a 'memory effect' and you won't feel much loss if you don't drain the battery to 0. It is better off to do so, but its too much of a pain micromanaging it.

 

Yes, this is correct. Lithium-ion has no memory effect. However, It doesnt really like to be "fully discharged". Its actually not so good for the battery.The only time you should (purposely) fully discharge is when you are doing a calibration (do one every 20 to 30 cycles).

 

Oh...

I was under the impressiont hat u have to fully dsicharge li-ion bats everytime.....

guess i shouldnt then.

How come my battery shows 97% when fully charged in NHC? It's only been used once on battery and now it doesnt even charge to full capacity? Or is NHC wrong?

 

You shouldn't fully discharge Li-Ion batteries often, if at all... apparently, that can produce more wear on them. You should try to keep them charged as much as possible, in fact.

As for you the NHC showing 97%, it could be wrong... or you could have a defective battery. Try discharging/charging the battery again.

 

Should I use the battery calibration tool in BIOS or just discharge/charge by using it on battery?

 

Here are some stats from Everest

Designed Capacity 51260 mWh
Fully Charged Capacity 50787 mWh
Current Capacity 49214 mWh (97 %)

it doesnt seem to want to charge anymore. but just yesterday before i put it to down to 0% battery life it had 100% max with about 50210mwh. the wear level still shows 0% though.

[edit] the nhc or the broken because i just tried draining the battery to around 85% and charging again...thenhc and windows battery life sensor stops at 49214mWh(97%) y]et it still says charging (with the +x.xxx watts charging in nhc) and the charge light on the notebook is lit.

[edited again] now i just rebooted because I installed a new game(hitman contracts)....and now NHC reports the max battery charge at 49214mwh.....and now my battery wear is at 3% according to NHC...is that possible? I've on gone on battery once...yesterday from 100% to 0%. This notebook is only 2.5 days old...is my battery defective or is this normal?

 

i think you should always take the data given by the software with a grain of salt. Ignore NHC and just use ur lappie on battery. 2nd last brightness level...battery saving on pwr4gear with NHC turned off. If you get around 2:45hrs of battery life...your battery is fine.

Don't stress I don't even know what my battery wear level is at.

 

Yea I'm typing now on battery power with pwr4gear and wifi on....it says there is 77% bat life left with 2:20~ left...and I've been on like this for around 30 minutes

[edit] 66% left at the 50 minute mark....although i used 2 minutes on Hi-performance mode(so that drained quite a bit of power)

problem is...with only 3% bat "wear" according to nhc...(its not on) but its hard to check if its actually drained....it doesnt bother me much but im just scared that my battery is defective...

 

if it doesnt charge to 100%, try this - charge till the point where it stops charging then unplug the power then run it down about 5-10%, then shut down your laptop completely and charge the battery while its turned off.

 

Not to scare you... but this sounds horribly familiar to me...
See this thread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=48194&page=19

Anyway, it's not time to panic about the battery at this point. It might be only the transient, cause it's new, and then it might settle nicely on some value of the capacity close to the design value.

 

I had the same "exact" problem. I think the battery hasnt been broken into enough. I had that problem for the first 2 days. I did 3 full discharges total. Then i discharge 2-3%, then recharge about 5 times. The solution wasnt instant but all is fine now.