New Dell Laptop Question

When I first receive my laptop, is it safe to turn it on right out of the box or am I supposed to charge it first?

I know some electronics say to charge it first so that you don't ruin the battery in any way.

 

When I got mine the battery was fully charged. Lithium batteries really don't care. I opened mine, stuck the battery in it, and ran it for an hour at work before I turned it off.

 

Its only for first usage. Considering the fact that the battery already comes charged.. you don't have to worry about that at all.

 

Nah, I think they charge them before shipping them off to you. Mine was fully charged at least.

 

Yeah, the QA have to do something to make sure everythings working right?

 

When I got my 1530..I took it out of the box and turned it on to make sure all was in working order. And, I didn't start charging the battery for like 1 hour after initial use

When I finally did..I had no problems at all..

So, I think your *good to go on that*

Cin

 

I got mine, turned it on and figured out the battery was already charged.. anyway, I started working on the laptop, fiddling, messing around and basically enjoying this machine right from with word go

 

Yeah, I remember when I first turned it on. I was thinking, yeah this LED display is going to be better than the CCFL display even though theres the WUXGA resolution that I decided not to go with because of the LED.

When I turned on the system, it blew me away. I was totally shocked by how good the display was.

I looked at my E1505 display and thought to myself, wow, its so dim, I can't believe I could use it for so many years. XD

I then looked at other people's laptops of people at work and looked back at my display and was like... wow.....

 

hmm... how DO the QA make sure? cause when i got my laptop, the first boot was very slow, and vista needed setup.....

 

Good question. My QA for the first M1530 I got was horrible too. RAM cover was not screwed on properly and was bending in a weird way that exposed all the RAM underneath it, the keyboard had a huge bump in the center, the notebook wasn't level when I put it on a flat surface, slot drive was extremely loud, the notebook crashed with a BSOD the first time I turned it on...

Luckily the brand new replacement I requested was in perfect condition.

 

I usually plug mine in for the first boot, but then again my first boot usually involves making a True Image of the factory install.

 

Just the same, I would probably recommend, after a full charge, running the lappy off the battery 2-3 times until the computer shuts itself off. I started to do this with any device I have that uses an Li-ion over the last couple years, and I swear that they seem to hold a charge a little better, a little longer.

Then again, maybe technology is getting better and has caught up with my superstitions. : )

 

So it's better if I dont charge the battery the first time until turn off??? Why???

 

This is just his opinion and a suggestion. Look at batteryuniversity.com for a GOOD amount of info on Lithium batteries. I learned MANY new things about Lithium batteries from that website. It's a great resource and tool.

 

I had the same experience when I got to play with a Macbook Pro. A coworker with a year old HP's screen is...well it's night and day difference. Even my desktop display that's a few years old is very noticeably dimmer than when I got it, and noticeably dimmer when I first turn it on.

 

Taken from your website recommendation:

"Although lithium-ion is memory-free in terms of performance deterioration, batteries with fuel gauges exhibit what engineers refer to as "digital memory". Here is the reason: Short discharges with subsequent recharges do not provide the periodic calibration needed to synchronize the fuel gauge with the battery's state-of-charge. A deliberate full discharge and recharge every 30 charges corrects this problem." ( http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm)

SO, allowing for a full discharge, accompanied by an overnight re-charge, is a great way to 'teach' your computer what the true available battery life is. You wouldn't want the 'digital memory' telling the computer that the battery was at 3% charge and must shut down when that may not be the case at all. Especially if, to your astonishment, your battery life seems to have dropped considerably lately. It could just be time to 're-calibrate'. If you read on, the page talks about the degradation of storage capacity over time. So, it is a reality that the storage capacity of a Li-Ion battery is going to basically weaken over time, however that does not discount the advice of forcing a full discharges early on (when you receive your new device) and later on (after 30 charges or so). Accompanied with a full recharge, discharging the battery can be a good way to maintain peak performance. It is NOT recommended that this is done all the time, and I wouldn't recommend that either.
Evidently my opinion is still worth something. Please make sure you know your own source before brushing the comments of others aside. Of course, you probably skipped that part (great link though).

 

use RMClock to monitor ur battery's actual capacity over time...

 

Our of curiosity, can you just remove the battery from Dell's laptops? I'll just be using mine as a UPS basically, as 99% of the time I'll have it plugged in. Apple's notebooks drop in speed massively if they don't have their batteries in-basically their PSU isn't big enough for the max power draw the system can use. To me that's BIZARRE, but I've heard Apple supporters make all kinds of excuses for it, and how wondrous it is to have a 2mm thinner PSU or whatever

 

Wolfpup,

I believe that you can. I have done that, but I haven't actually tried using the PC in that state. You can probably test that safely. Just make sure the cord doesn't get yanked out in mid-boot or anything like that.

 

When mine arrived the battery had 80% charge. The initial Vista activation didn't take that long.. about 10-15 minutes tops. There's a button on the battery to see how much charge there is.