Full battery

Hi - not sure if this is the correct place to post this!

I jus bought a new Sony Vaio Z - and am loving the machine. However, there is a slight point of annoyment - I bought an extended battery which supposedly should give me 9 hours of battery time. However, every time I charge the battery, it stops at 80%. Not 79, not 81, but 80 - every time. I'm thinking there can be these causes to the problem:

- The battery has a mistake. I find the implausible as it is weird it stops at excactly 80% every time.

- There is a software compability problem due to the fact that it isn't a standard battery, meaning that it "doesn't" know how to charge the battery more than 80%

What do you guys think?
Thanks

 

Isnt a battery hardware, and the software is just used to moniter the stored power?

Could either be an OS / program error OR you battery is faulty.

 

I don't know about Sony's, but on ThinkPads you can set battery charge thresholds. For example, my battery stops at 95%.

I would suggest you poke around in your power management software and see if you can find this type of setting.

 

Their may be a problem with the battery itself.
Download a copy of cpu rightmark. In the battery section, you will see that the program lists everything about the battery.
It will also indicate wear levels. If your battery already has a 20% wear level, than you should contact sony and ask for a new battery.

http://cpu.rightmark.org/download/rmclock_235_bin.exe

K-TRON

 

I'm pretty sure Sony has power management settings for battery thresholds. I believe the one your laptop is currently on is something like "Balanced Battery Lifetime" or something of the sort - basically, it stops charging at 80%, in order to prevent harmful battery wear, as Li-Ion batteries are best kept at around 40-60% charge. 80% is a compromise between maximum untethered battery life and maximum battery lifetime.

This is the default setting, although I think you can change it to stop charging at 60% (for users who mostly stay plugged in) or at 100% (if you really need the maximum battery time).

 

Thanks everybody - as e.g. midnightsun said, it was due to the battery care function, and I've now found out how to make it stop.

Is it a bad idea to set it to 100%? How much will it kill the battery compared to 80%?

 

It will just be weared normal when charging it to 100%. It's made for being fully used from the beginning, so i guess it's just a thing to keep it more long-lifed than normal.

Otherwise it's useless to buy a better battery if it's not made to take 100% charge

 

KTRON, is there a battery utility that works with Vista64? I tried the one you linked to, but it wouldn't run.

 

Sorry, I do not use Vista. Its strange though that it works fine with XP. maybe its because you have a 64 bit operating system. I believe rightmark is 32 bit only.

K-TRON

 

Alright thanks.

 

Apparently a signed 64bit driver is needed for RMClock in 64bit Vista. A link is supplied in the undervolting guide - http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=235824.

David

 

Thanks for the heads up!

 

80% on a Sony is a battery care utility.

It can be set to:

50% intended for AC usage, to maximise battery life and minimise wear

80% as a compromised between wear and battery life (I use this on my SZ)

100% (i.e. switched off) which will increase battery wear slightly.

The battery care function can be accessed via the Vaio Control Center in the Start menu under all programmes.