S69S battery calibration help!

Hey, So I have had my sS69S for about a month now, and I need help calibrating the battery/fixing it. I have a 6 cell, and yes I have read the FAQ but the link to the battery calibration tool isn't working.

First off, after I fully charge it, when I unplug it, it drops to about 92% most of the time, and that is a big difference than full battery for me. My computer only has about 1:45 of battery life, and I need all of it because I am traveling from class to class, so 10 minutes is a big deal.

Secondly, recently I fully charged it overnight, and then I was using it on battery power and after about 30 minutes it went to very low battery, telling me I had only 10 minutes remaining.. I have a bunch of tools on may computer speedfan, centrino performance tool, but I dont really know how to use them properly to fix this??
Someone please help!

 

Right, in order:

1. How to calibrate. Most ASUS notebooks will have a battery calibration option in the BIOS. Reboot, at ASUS splash hit F2, select "Start Batt Calibration", wait for the battery to charge completely, unplug, wait for battery to discharge completely.

2. A battery cannot "drop to 92%" because there are electrochemical processes at play that require the charge evolution to be continuous in time. The reading is somehow faulty.

If using Vista, download RM Clock, start it with "No Management" profile and look at the battery information. You will get info about the designed max charge, current max charge that the battery can hold, from which the wear level results. Note these are the readings that Windows uses to compute your batt lifetime so they will probably be faulty as well.

I know you have NHC but that one has issues with Vista so I'm recommending RMClock.

About the discontinuous jump from 30 to 10: again I see faulty battery readings. I'm not sure how you can fix this, but I recommend:

* updating or reinstalling the ACPI drivers,
* getting rid of ACPI-related software like NHC and SpeedFan and Centrino perf tool that might interfere with ACPI functionality
* updating BIOS to latest version

Hopefully these steps will solve your problem.

 

How do I check my bios version/ determine if its the newest? Where can I download updated bios, and will it reset my data on my computer??

Also here is a picture of what I am talking about-- Also note this is 20 minutes after being fully charged.

 

It might also be a faulty battery...

For the BIOS: boot into BIOS (F2) and check the version on screen. To download another version, go to support.asus.com click Download and search your model name.

 

When I loaded up my bios it said it was version 2.58, when I downloaded the newest version from http://downloadcenter.intel.com/con...92&DwnldId=13726&strOSs=&OSFullName=&lang=eng

it was called version 113.
Anyway, I downloaded it, but how do I install it? I click the files nothing really happens..

 

I'm not sure what BIOS is that but it's not the right one. Please follow the procedure that I outlined in my previous post. But do NOT write that BIOS that you linked, write only a S69S BIOS from support.asus.com (and only if the version is newer than what you have now). Edit: it seems that that website provides BIOSes for the S96S and the support.asus.com doesn't. Well I don't know then, if you are sure that is a correct BIOS then you can write it but I don't guarantee it'll work.

Also, seeing youre not very comfortable with this sort of thing I'm not sure you should update your BIOS... well it's up to you. To emphasize: if you write a wrong BIOS file you will kill your machine, effectively turning it into a paperweight. (for some machines there are crash recovery solutions but don't bet on them)

Instructions:

 

Hi,

ASUS S96S notebooks don't have an "Easy Flash Utility" embedded in the BIOS, at least mine does not have one, and the BIOS needs to be flashed in DOS. The ASUS Update Utility that can be downloaded from Intel's site does not seem to be able to do the flashing as it gives an error. (If a new version is released and works, please drop me a message.)

How to flash the BIOS of a S96S notebook:
(I take NO responsibility for ANY damages caused by doing these steps, altough it worked perfectly for me.)

A very helpful forum member named Cas has prepared a bootable DOS CD with the v113 BIOS and tools:

http://www.nicamserwis.pl/asus/s96sbios1.13cd.iso

You'll need to burn it to a CD or DVD as an image file (DO NOT just burn it as a single .iso file in the root directory) then boot it. (On a S96S, you can access the boot menu by pressing ESC)

At some point in the booting, it will wait for a keystroke.


The line I have highlighted is the drive letter assigned for the DVD. It is usually R: for most people (I dont know if it's hardcoded), but if it's different for you, take a note of it.


After that you'll get to a simple command prompt, type the driver letter you've got:

A:\> R:

Then just type bios (case does not matter):

R:\> bios

After that the flashing should start, it shouldn't take too much time. Of course when it's done, restart.

For me, flashing the BIOS to the newest version did not improve anything, but it's always nice to have the latest fixes and improvements (if any).