Do all batteries die after a year?

It seems like every laptop I've owned had a battery that died within 12-18 months after purchase.

Is this the norm or am I serial battery killer?

CE

 

This is normal Li-On batteries hold less and less of a charge over time until they die

 

its not supposed to die that fast... unless if you were careless and kept it plugged in all the time... without giving it some charge cycles.. in order to keep it healthy.

My 3 year old notebook still retains about the same charge as it did when I built the system back in 2006.

please refer to the Battery Guide

 

yes all batteries have 1 year of life after they are born and when they die they go to battery heaven. joking.

It really depends how you use it. I had one that lasted about 8months in my hands. Being careful I've one that lasted 24months. It all depends on many factors. Battery guide is really great to improve your battery lifetime.

 

But that because you kept it in tip top condition didnt you?

12-18 months of "regular people" use is pretty good.

 

My 2 year old laptop is almost always running on battery and gets a full charge every night. It still lasts just as long as when i bought it. =o

 

Li-On batteries do have finite lifetimes due to their chemistry, the batteries begin degrading as soon as they are produced, whether they have ever been charged or not.

There are things though that decrease a Li-On batteries life, and in a laptops case, the main factor that can do this is heat - unfortunately you may be able to do very little about this.

I was under the impression that the lifespan was longer than 18 months though.

In any case, they are also limited in the number of times they can be charged, I believe generally this is approximately 1,000 charge cycles; that is fully charged to full de-charged - though I am not 100% on this.

 

Li-ion batteries are limited by a finite period of time, but this is usually quite long (as in, shelf life). More concerning is the number of charge cycles that a Li-ion battery can take before dying (or holding so little time that it's effectively dead) - therefore, if you use your battery more or take improper care of it, it will die sooner rather than later.

 

It depends on when the manufacturer wants the battery to die.
The original battery for my inspiron 8500 is still going strong. I simply reset it about 2 yrs ago and that make 7yrs of run time. My LIP smart bay battery is also still going strong.

I have not had any batteries die on me in any of my Dell, Clevo, Lenovo, or Mitac systems.

Most of these systems are older, and well the manufacturers werent as much out there to make the owner buy a new battery every few years.

I should also add, I do not cycle my batteries, refrigerate them and all of that silly jazz.

K-TRON

 

I go through about 2 battery cycles every day. Each battery cycle last around 4-6 hours.

The battery is still going strong.

Technically, Li-ion batteries have almost infinit amount of cycles it can have and can be used almost infinit times and duration. The #1 killer of Li-ion in laptops is internal resistance.

 

My trusty Compal CL56's battery life is still ~ 3 1/2 hours long nearly 5 years after I first purchased it in june '04 (the model was considered by some the first real gaming notebook so its not a low volt model). I think its helped that the loose power jack that doesn't charge half the time for like the past two years. Either that or I have one of those outlier top 5% batterys that last forever.

 

My Sony battery is close to 3 years old and I get around 60% of the battery life that I did when it was new. I've been fairly mean to it, as I probably discharge it on average 3-4 times each week so it must have hit 500 cycles by now. Also I used to remove it while the PC was running to keep its temperature down but I gave up when I realised how annoying it was to unplug your laptop then realise you'd taken the battery out earlier ^_^

 

Considering the price of a new battery I can't be bothered with unplugging it when on AC power. Plus, if you do that and you have a power cut you've lost whatever you were doing. Much easier to keep the battery in and have to buy a new one in x years time.

 

My four year old Asus battery is still in 94% health.
My 1/2 year old Samsung battery is in 90% health.

I've been taking good care only of the Asus battery.

 

I think you have that backwards. Batteries are rated for a certain number of cycles -- if you keep it plugged in all the time, it doesn't really deteriorate all that much (unless you're talking about the really old stuff that doesn't know when to start and when to stop charging).

To the original poster: no, it should not die after a year unless it was a piece of garbage to begin with or you've been cycling it several times a day for 365 days. I've owned 3 laptops (2 for more than 3 years, the current one for 16 months) and I've never had one die on me (after 3 years, they don't last as long, but the lifetime is still quite reasonable).

 

That's correct, except I read somewhere that you should run through a cycle every once in a while, or rather not necessarily an entire cycle, but down to about 40% or thereabouts. Am at work now, but I'll see if I can find it when I get home; might not be remembering it correctly to be honest.

Batteries do have a shelf life also that is unrelated to charge cycles. This is still a lot longer than the op has experienced. Unless of course you've been keeping it somewhere really warm, as this messes around with the chemistry of the battery and shortens it's lifespan - hence why they recommend that when storing you do so in a cool place.

 

Actually he didn't. Leaving your notebook plugged in all the time, with the battery in it, is not good. It's better to make a cycle now and then.

For more info: notebook battery guide
Or: http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

 

Companies advertise the number "charge cycle" on the product specification. Usually this number is between 150-300. When you've used this many recharge/discharge cycles, your battery's usable life is decreased to 75%. Batteries don't die when its 75% used, do they?

 

My laptop is about a year or two old and is 91% battery health and still lasts 4 hours on power save xD

 

Actually, you're right, I usually keep it plugged in. So I am SUPPOSED to cycle it?

How do you RESET a battery?

 

Yes once in a while. If you read this, it will be clear:
http://www.apple.com/batteries/notebooks.html

 

MY MBP has had 1400 cycles and has a capacity of 96% left and a total uptime of 46 days since i bought it ~ 2 - 3 months ago

 

1400 cycles in 90 days... That's 15 cycles a day

 

1cycle means a complete discharge and recharge. So, if you have 15 cycles a day, that means your MacBook Pro can only last less than 1.6hours per full charge.

If you discharge 5% and then recharge very time you use the battery and do that 20 times, that's 1 cycle.

Using my acer aspire one for almost a year, I wore out my battery to 80%. I have gone through about 250-300 full charge cycles. My netbook is on 24/7 and on battery at least 10 hours a day. Now my netbook's battery life only last 5 hours. :<

 

Thats what the battery is reporting anyway lmao!

 

Keeping it plugged in, isn't necessarily a bad thing, as said in the battery guide. I keep it in since where I live there are lots of power fluctuations and I use the battery as a mini UPS, so I don't lose work when I'm on my notebook. Though I do take my notebook to class every week so it does get discharged while not at home occasionally. Almost 1 year now, capacity is still 99%.

 

it lasts 6 and a half hours on average i think theres so many because i leave it plugged in alot

 

The only truly bad thing about keeping your battery plugged in is that it likely gets warm/hot, and that is bad for batteries. However, I personally keep mine in anyway; I mean if my battery gives up the ghost, I'll just go buy a new one.

 

You can set it to prevent charging at a certain rate. The battery is in my machine 24/7 and on A/C power is cool to touch.

 

Sure, that's not what I mean though. What I am talking about is the fact that most laptops are warm, and hence having your battery plugged into the laptop means some of that heat will transfer to the battery regardless of whether it is charging.

It's not a massive deal on some laptops, but on others it is - of course it depends on how your machine is physically setup and it's cooling properties.

 

Very true. Too bad batteries don't have built-in thermistors that the notebook or motherboard can access.

 

I think there are many factors...

My first laptop after 3 years only runs 45 minutes if I'm lucky... and never lasted more than 1,5 hours even though they advertied it as lasting 3 I think...

My Vaio is now nerly a year old, daily use and 3% battery wear.

Difference:
Old one - battery charged via XP no software control

Vaio has a battery saver function that chargesit to 80% only, also its Vista, so it won'T charge for just 1%

I think it really varies on what you buy and how you use it.

 

Is there a software to control the status of the battey?

 

The free version of battery bar will do that

Check the free software thread for a link - I haven't got one handy.

 

My HP battery lasted about 18 months before I considered it a useless 20 minute battery.

My brother's HP battery also lasted about 18 months before becoming a 20 minute battery as well.

I tried to follow the guidelines for better battery life, charging when I can avoiding deep discharge cycles... yet it doesn't last. I assume HP just uses lower quality cells which die regardless of care.

 

How can you avoid deep discharge when it's impossible to do a deep discharge on laptop Li-ion batteries? LOL

Anyways.. try turning off the power management features in Windows and drain the battery "completely dry". Which means running the battery below 0% mark until the system shutdown. Then try to power on the laptop for 10 times until the laptop battery doesn't supply any power to the laptop (no lights, no fan, no anything). Then charge your battery to full.

 

Perhaps the better term would be I avoid draining the battery too low... because I try to avoid letting it discharge below 40% so I could do partial cycles.

Yeah, I know the circuit will prevent you from discharging it past a certain point like 3.3v or something from the fully charged voltage of 3.7 or up to about 3.9v per lithium cell.

I should probably try a full power cycle like that to calibrate. I have drained it down to 5% but I guess that might not be enough.

 

Fully charged battery is probably 4.2-4.3v per cell. Some Li-ion batteries can go as low as 2.5V without any damages.

I use my battery until the meter reads 0%. I haven't experienced any ill effects yet.

 

Thats interesting, seems to defy logic of the battery university page people linked earlier but I will try that with my bad battery when I have the chance. Shouldn't take too long to drain it.

 

I have been using the original battery for the last 2 years and I have never removed it unless when I change the memory modules.

 

which part defies battery university's article?

 

...like...why?

 

I have a really old (6 year old) Dell D600 with original 53whr battery, and the battery still holds at least 80-85% charge and was used moderately.

If you use RMClock, you will not only extend battery life per use, but also decrease heat which is a cause for battery premature failure. Some prefer to store batteries in the fridge if they don't use them in a long time but I'm not so sure that's a great idea. Seal them airtight so there isn't condensation. Maybe it could be a decent idea if you had a backup batter. Let it warm to room temp!!!!

Take out the battery if you're plugged in too!!!! I believe if you follow good battery practices such as these, your battery can last 8 years easily (discounting the 5-10% charge loss per year)

 

I don't remember let me re-read what you said
Oh okay, I recall reading something about avoiding deep discharges http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=1696318&postcount=4

http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm

But you seem to have proven it completely wrong, I tried my best to not drain the battery below 30% for almost a whole year and it was pretty bad in the end while yours sounds fine.

Out of curiosity and comparison laptop brand do you have?

I did do a full discharge down to 0% where it wasn't even able to boot anymore then gave it a full charge and now my 20 minute battery gives me about 60 minutes which is great.

 

Technically, it's impossible to do a "deep discharge" on a laptop battery because there are circuits inside the laptop battery to prevent you to do so.

When you're using the battery from 100%-0%, you're doing a partial charge/discharge. Once you go to negative 25%-100% (if that is even possible), then you're at full discharge.

BTW.. completely "drain" your battery couple times more and your "dead" battery capacity should improve more.

I've used all sorts of Li-ion batteries. They're essentially the same thing. Almost all laptop batteries are unprotected 18650s.

 

Why? The main purpose is to "reset" the batttery charge meter. Everything is in quotation mark because that's not what actually happens. Most people will be fine with the world "reset".