Notebook Battery Guide

I have a Thinkpad X61s notebook with an 8 cell battery, that normally lasts for 4.5 hours with wifi and bright display.

Last month I noticed that once the battery reaches level 50% or 60% it drops automatically to 5% and hibernates. The battery is not lasting more than 1 hour now. The Lenovo Power Manager shows that battery condition is ‘good’. I tried to reset the battery using Lenovo Power Manager but the process took more than 2 days and did not complete. I forced it to stop.

I went to Power Manager and removed the alarms which hibernate the computer once it reaches low levels. The battery is now lasting much longer although it is showing 0% capacity. The problem is that the battery now goes into complete discharge and shuts down automatically without notice.

Attached is a snap shot of the battery status from the Power Manager.

I am trying to determine whether:
1) I have a bad battery and need replacement, or
2) I need to calibrate the battery,
3) It is a software issue.

Your help is appreciated.

 

Looking at the image, it looks like a bit of 1 and 2.

The manufacture date is "2007-08-29" which makes it about 21 months old (aging starts from date of manufacture, not frst use date). That is old enough to have a noticeable reduction in life. Which is indicated by the full charge capacity being 58.35Wh which is much lower than the design capacity of 74.88Wh. It has dropped to about 77% of design. So, if you are getting about three quarter of the time you originally got, then that should be write.

The discharge pattern you describe is something I have heard of but not seen. Though on the T40 I used a couple of years ago, it had about 20 minutes of life after the battery hit zero. Calibration sounds like a good idea. But, if this failed, then I don't know what to suggest. Maybe one of the Thinkpad forums can help.

Something interesting might be to run BatteryMon. This can graph the discharge of the battery to show what is happening. It probably won't help, but I am curious to see what it reports when the battery hits the 50% mark.

David

 

Thanks David.

Any suggestions on how to calibrate the battery?

 

My ASUS has a battery calibration function in the BIOS, but I haven't tried it. I would think that part of the maintenance option you have would do this. As it failed, that is a problem. It might be an idea to look into why. Maybe reinstall the software?

The other methods are simply to run the battery lat and recharge. You are doing this and it isn't helping. A possibility is to boot to the BIOS screen and leave it there to discharge.

David

 

great thread thanks

 

Great post; next time I see a battery related question I'm directing them to this thread. + rep!

 

Great guide! Answered every question I had.

 

I have a used Dell Latitude D620 and I'm trying to determine if I have a bad battery or not. If I read through the thread correctly, my best approach is to boot the computer, leave it on and let it power down automatically. Then I should recharge the battery and make a determination from there if I have a bad battery or not. Sound correct?

 

Yes, run it through a full cycle and see what the run down life is. The simplest is to do this from the outside the OS so that it doesn't go to sleep or hibernate. But, it can also be useful doing it inside the OS with a battery monitor that graphs the battery state. Passmark BatteryMon will do this. If you do this, you need to turn all the battery saving options off to get the best results.

David

 

My new laptop arrived , what I have to do with the new battery ? (haven't seen this topic on the first page)

 

Put it in the laptop, plug the laptop in and start using it.

Li-Ion batteries do not need any special conditioning on first use. There may be some merit in fully cycling the battery to calibrate the charge levels. Personally, I don't bother.

 

I'm bit confused b/w the two conditions... Which one is better to preserve the battery?

1) charging my laptop till the battery is full and then unplugged it and use it on the battery till 10-20% charge is remaining and plug it back on AC-power.. and repeate the cycle...

2) I should be prolonged charging technique ?? I should charge the battery upto 40 % and then remove the battery and start using it on AC power all the time and plug my battery once in a every two weeks ...


I guess by condition 1 i will be loosing the cycles much more than the condition 2...right ???


Please help me....

 

That is right. Number 1 would be a bad idea because you would use a lot of cycles. Number 2 is the way to go if you don't need to use the battery. If you need to use it even once a week, I don't think it is practical. Personally, my battery stays in all the time. It is there so I can move between the table and the couch without worry, or if there is a power cut.

David

 

I ordered 2 batteries with my Laptop.

Now according to this thread, a second battery is a waste.

HMMM

Guess i lost some $$

 

Which of these is better ?

a) Keeping the battery connected (at 80% charge all the time) while on the AC adaptor.

b) Charge to 80%, use it off the battery till it discharges to 10% then recharge. (battery temp remains low)

 

Thanks davidfor for such a nice help!!

Can anybody clear one of my these doubts as well ??

1) If i remove my battery and by using the prolonged charging technique i.e 40% charging and i should remove my battery from the laptop then how often should i be put my battery again and then use it ?? one week/two week or what ??

2) And what would be the technique to use the battery let's say I'm using it after two weeks, because i removed the battery when it was 40% charged, so when i will put my battery should i discharged it first completely upto 10% and recharged it fully and i should use it upto the level of 40% and remove it from the notebook ??

 

I believe he's giving a recommendation based primarily on cost? If you're like me, having a second backup battery just makes good since. As far as I'm concerned, the security and piece of mind is well worth the price.

LOL, looks like you've gotten yourself quite a conundrum? In any event, if I were your, I'd discharge a stored battery completely then recharge it to full before I needed to use it.

Incidentally, I still think all this is too much to have to be bothered with in these days and times. After all, the whole intent of a computer is to make these repetitive tasks simpler. By now, manufactures should include a simple on/off toggle switch (key) that could disable the charge cycle and simplify things immensely. The idea of having to physically remove the battery...just seem so 1980's.

 

True for some of us I absolutely agree, but.....

1. How many more support calls do you think companies would get because they can't charge their battery.
2. How about how many of these switches would break?
3. Or the number of people who don't understand how Li-on / Li-poly batteries work (the manufacturers really don't help here either).
4. The final thing to add on this is how many times would you be annoyed that you thought your battery was full because you'd used it on AC the past month, only to find that when out in the field it suddenly dies after 10 minutes because you hadn't flipped the switch to turn the charge cycle back on?

It boils down to the same thing every time, that means those that know have to find work arounds because there are more people that don't know. People are stupid, but a person is clever. They need to plan for the masses, rather than the small groups.

 

I won't disagree with any of the points you made, rather, point out that I'm not asking for anything thats that unusual. I have an HID bike light with a charger that you simply plug in and forget. Sure I had to pay a premium ($100 more) for this convenience, but it just goes to show that it can be done.

 

Well Krane that was not the reply of my question in anyway, so can anyone else tell me please and better we stick to the topic.

 

i just bought a new acer 1410 and when i first got it, i put in the battery and started using the laptop at the same time connecting it to ac adapter, when the laptop went to 40% and dimmed its lights automatically (while installing vista as this was first time) i realized i hadnt turned on the wall outlet i plugged it to (my bad).

in summary i basically put in my battery and used it till it was 49%ish and then plugged it in and charged it via ac power while installing vista. then when it was fullly charged i unplugged it and used the batter to 10% before turning it off and recharging it to fully before turning it on agian.

i realize i kinda f'd up by not charging it fully first before using it. do i need to exchange it becuase now its my third recharge and the battery life is only 3hrs 45 when its supposed to be 6 hrs according to ppl who bought the same laptop.

did i screw up? or do i need to charge and recharge another couple times?

 

Hi,

Are Generic batteries a good option? Is performance really different from original batteries? The thing is that I've got a HP DV9535nr and I'm looking for a battery replacement, my options are either the Original HP 8 Cell Battery or a Generic 12 Cell Battery.

I want my battery to have a long life, 3 years would be the best, as my original battery lasted, will generic batteries last for 3 years, should I buy 12 cell generic or original 8 cell battery?

thank you!

 

Personally I always buy branded batteries nowadays. It's the guaranteed compatibility + 12 month warranty that gets me. Sure some generic batteries can come with this too, but past experience with generic batteries has not been good. This is of course just my experience, I've heard from a great many people that their generic batteries actually lasted longer than their original branded ones.

Caveat Emptor - let the buyer beware.

You pays your money, you take your chances I guess. Just make sure that if you buy generic that you buy from a reputable seller that allows you to return the item and preferably provides you with that 12 month warranty

 

Well, the do offer 12 months, however, I don't know if Level 8 Technology is consider to be a good seller regarding batteries...

Here's the Level 8 Technology battery
http://www.level8technology.com/hp-pavilion-dv9000-battery-hp-pavilion-dv9000-laptop-battery-3148

and

HP branded battery
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834998046

By the way, what can you say about generic chargers, I've been using a generic charger for over a year, however, I don't know if that killed my battery or if it were the 3 years...

 

Generic chargers are typically less of a concern as long as you get the right one for your notebook of course, although some of them can get pretty hot in comparison with those originally supplied with your machine.

 

Hi all,

First post here, so be gentle please...

I've read a lot of this thread, and also a ton of other advice on the net about whether or not one should remove the battery from a notebook when using AC power. And overall, it seems to come down to personal preference.

What I've still not found is a clear answer to my current (geddit?) dilemma, which is: If I'm using my netbook in close proximity to an AC outlet (which I do most days), then does it make a lot of difference to long-term battery life whether I:

a) Run the netbook on AC power, leaving the battery plugged in.
b) Run the netbook on AC power, but take the battery out.
c) Ignore the wall socket, and run the battery until it's down to 10-20% before plugging it in to recharge.

I'd prefer not to use option B, as the battery's shape adds to the 'lap stability' of the little netbook. And it doesn't seem to me (from reading the info here) that removing the battery will make a huge difference to its lifespan anyway; at least, compared to the inconvenience factor...

I'm using a recently purchased Packard Bell Dot-S netbook (which is a rebadged Asus Aspire D250, I believe) with the supplied 6 cell long life battery pack.

Thanks in advance for any advice/opinions on this.

 

From what I've been able to tell, a) or b) are probably a wash, depending on your specific netbook. If it generates a lot of heat, around the battery pack, you might get a lot more mileage out of it if you use b) compared to a), but if it doesn't, the annoyance factor will probably significantly outweigh the battery life gain. C) is probably the worst option, as you'll be continually using up charge/discharge cycles by doing so, although it does have the benefit of keeping you battery charge meter up to date... at the cost of your battery life.

 

Thanks for that Judicator. I take it then that the phrase "a wash" refers to a) or b) being the preferred options (I've not come across the term before!).

This netbook doesn't seem to generate any heat around the battery attachment area, so I guess it'll be okay for me to stick to option a).

This is funny, as I'd got the impression a couple of days ago from reading around on other forums that I ought to avoid working with the netbook plugged in and the battery attached..! So I'd changed my habits accordingly. Now, I'll go back to what I was doing to start with.

Thanks again!

 

wash - noun: any enterprise in which losses and gains cancel out.

Basically, I'm saying a) and b) are about even.

Really, as I said, I think a lot of the problems people have with a) or b) depend hugely on their specific model of notebook. My old compaq R3247US went through a battery in about 8-12 months (as in, after that time, it'd barely hold a charge). My current NX860XL battery has been in use for about 3 years and can still last well over an hour, depending on what exactly I'm doing.

The only "certain" independent factors that we can be pretty sure of that reduce battery life are heat, charge/discharge cycles, and age. Yes, if you took option b), you might get maybe, oh, 10% (total guess here!) more life out of your battery. Is that worth the aggravation of the hole in the bottom, as well as the possibility that a quick tug of (or someone tripping over) the power cord means you lose whatever you're working on at the time? That's up to you. Also note that if you're storing your battery, you shouldn't be storing it at full charge anyway, you should be storing it at around, if I remember correctly, about 40% charge. So if you wanted to use that battery, you'd have to plug it in, charge it up, and then unplug the AC cord... ugh. Too much work for me.

 

I have an old dell inspiron 1300 with a dead battery pack in it that when I opened it up has three seperate cells inside.. Output is 11.1V 2200mAh and I wondered where I could buy the cells from? Theyre a daft fortune from the manufacturer and so it's got to be generics.. The batteries have chinese markings but nothing I could find on Google.. Any ideas where I can buy cells the same from? I was thinking of (Identically..) soldering a new set in place, and it's an old laptop.. I just need to source them.

 

My Toshiba notebook battery which the model No. is PA3593U-1BAS,it can work about 2 hour only.But I was told before it can work more than 3-4 hours!
So when I ask their after-sales Department,they said there's no any battery can work over than 3 hours.Is it true?

 

Hi there,
I think I messed up my new battery.
I received this week a new battery for my Toshiba Laptop.What I did,after reading online and so ,I put my new battery in, I charge it until was 100%,I took the AC cord out I let my battery drain till 0%.I did it about 2 times..Now I think I messed it up or?
I keep my laptop now only on AC cord and the battery is charged up to 50% and stored in the refrigerator.
Can you tell me if I was doing good calibrating or I ruined it?
Please help ...

 

That is proper calibration. You're supposed to fully recharge, disable hibernation and automatic shut down and run it until it drops. Sometimes you have to do it twice to get get it to reset "calibration" warning.

I have an HP laptop form 2005 and I have an HP monitoring software for it. It will tell you "calibration needed" in the software and HP prescribes what you just did.

 

I have an Acer 1810TZ that supposedly has a 6 cell 5600mah battery because in smaller print on the battery it says 5.27ah. Anyway it has only had about 5- 6 charges although each one has been to the minimum level and then charged to 100%. Consequence of this is that the battaery is only charging to 91.7% of its rated capacity based on 5.6ah.

I would like to recover that missing 8.3% if possible. My win 7 power plan does not let the battery run to 0% as the minimum critical level value is 1%. In order to do a full cycle charge would it harm the battery if when the machine shuts down at the approx. 1% level to then boot to bios and let it run till it stops. In other words does the battery have an automatic cutoff built in or is this a function of the charger/notebook

Thanks

 

5.27 ah = 5270 mah. If your battery says 5.27 ah, then it's only 5270 mah, not 5600 mah. Even so, Li-Ion batteries automatically wear over time, and will lose capacity as a result. 8% wear is not uncommon for a battery half a year to a year old, depending on usage patterns and heat, so you may not be able to recover that missing percentage.

The battery itself _should_ (and truthfully, probably does) have an automatic cutoff built in to keep itself from being drained too low, but that's really a function of the manufacturer/designer of that particular battery. The big thing to remember is to never discharge a Li-Ion battery down to as low as it will go, and then let it sit without recharging it back up to 30-40%, as Li-Ion batteries _DO_ self-discharge, and leaving a low charge battery like that is liable to have it self-discharge below safe levels.

 

I understand that but it is sold as 5600mah and indeed it says in much bigger and much more prominently 5600mah but in very small print it says 5.27ah – Note that they change the nomenclature form mah to ah I am just reporting what is on the battery. On a side note this is also false in that if it was 6 cell x 5600 it would equate to 124.32wh but obviously 2x3.7v cells are in parallel. powercfg –energy reports the max Design Capacity as 62160 which equates to the 5600mah as it is promoted and sold as. The first report I had was Last Full Charge = 60340 which is in excess of the what 5.27 figure would equate to IE 58497. All very confusing

My battery is not half a year to a year old it is about 7- 8 weeks old and has only been charged about 6 or so times - 3 of those as per the Acer instructions:

Before you use a battery pack for the first time, there is a "conditioning" process that you should follow:
1 Insert the new battery without turning the computer on.
2 Connect the AC adapter and fully charge the battery.
3 Disconnect the AC adapter.
4 Turn on the computer and operate using battery power.
5 Fully deplete the battery until the battery-low warning appears.
6 Reconnect the AC adapter and fully charge the battery again.

Follow these steps again until the battery has been charged and discharged three times.

In addition, the useful lifespan of the battery is adversely affected by the following usage patterns:

Not discharging and recharging the battery to its extremes, as described above.

So as you can see I believe I have done the correct procedure

 

You've owned the battery for 7-8 weeks, perhaps, but that doesn't mean the battery isn't actually older. Li-Ion batteries start losing capacity from the date of manufacture, so if your battery has been sitting around for, say, a year before you bought it, it may have come in with less than the full capacity. I'm not saying you've done anything wrong, I'm just saying that things may be "normal" as they are. I'd watch your battery wear level over the next month and see if it drops significantly, or possibly ask other 1810TZ owners in the Acer subforum about their battery wear levels. Most notebook batteries will run about 1-2% wear a month on average, although, as stated before, this is heavily dependent on usage patterns, individual models, and even individual batteries (you may just have a not so good one).

 

Thanks will do that and monitor the "wear". I believe that the battery is not that old but cannot confirm this

 

All batteries works with cycles counts of charge? How can I know when more one cycle will be added if I let it on the outlet?

 

A cycle is one full discharge from 100% to 0% and then recharge back to 100%. It is also multiple partial discharges that add up to 100%. So, two discharges to 50% and recharge will be the same.

Working out how often you add up to a full cycle when on the laptop is on AC power is a bit harder. In all laptops, when the battery charge hits 100%, the charging is stopped. The battery is then left to self-discharge until it hits a pre-configured point. The charging is then turned on again until it is back to 100%. In all the laptops I have checked (three ASUS, two old Dells, a HP and a ThinkPad T40), the recharge point is 95%. So, twenty of these make up a full cycle.

How long does this take? Li-Ion cells have the lowest self-discharge rate for any cells. From memory, it is less than 5% per month. This is pushed up due to the protection circuit in the battery taking some power. When I had my ASUS F3SV plugged in almost all the time (except when moving from table to couch) late last year, it was taking two or three weeks for each drop to 95%. So, that means I would get a cycle a year if the laptop was never plugged in. The battery was about two years old at the time and the laptop had been used on battery most days for an hour during my commute. I think a new battery would show less self-discharge.

David

 

hey, man now a days there are so many flavors available with the batteries, there's max backup time is up-to 6-8 hrs..!

 

Thanks a lot David for the info.

 

Doesn't this disagree with the advice in the original post?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=1696324&postcount=9
...
Never discharge your battery to 0% – as this can render your battery useless.
Calibrate your battery’s fuel gauge by doing a full discharge every 30 cycles. Run the battery to the cut-off point in your notebook to keep the battery’s fuel gauge accurate.
...

My question is exactly how do I determine the cut-off point in my notebook to keep the battery’s fuel gauge accurate?

In my case I have an Acer Aspire 3810 Timeline (AS3810T-8737 LX.PCR02.085)

 

What I do is run it on battery until it goes into hibernation, then when it shuts off, turn it on and go to the BIOS and leave it there until it dies, then plug it in. Give it a minute to register that the battery is charging, then let it charge to 100%.

 

The original post is a bit dated; almost all modern batteries have protection circuits that will not let you actually go to 0% (it might say 0%, but there'll actually be some charge left). Now, if you let it go there, and then let the battery sit around for a while without charging (while meaning days/weeks, here, not a few hours), then due to the self-discharge nature of batteries, the charge may then drop below safe levels, but at that point we're talking about battery storage, not calibration (this is why it's recommended that you store Li-ion batteries at about 40% charge or so).

 

I agree completely with this, but am feeling a bit pedantic

The charge level of the battery is a measure of the voltage of the battery. So 0% and 100% map to voltages defined by the battery and laptop manufacturers.

There are two other important voltages. One is higher than the 100% voltage, the other is lower than the 0%. These are the where damage to the battery might happen. In both cases the protection circuit in the battery should trigger when the voltages are reached.

If the higher voltage is reached during charging, the protection circuit should kick in and turn off the charging. Depending on the battery, once the charging has been removed the battery might be enabled again and it will be OK. But, it is possible the protection circuit will act as a fuse and prevent any further use. This voltage should not be reached in a laptop as the charging is supposed to stop when it hits 100%. But the protection is there.

The lower voltage is less than the 0% voltage and is far more important. If this voltage is reached, the protection circuit triggers and disables the battery. In this case the cells in the battery could be damaged and the circuit will not allow the battery to be charged again. This means that it should be OK to run the battery down to 0% as long as it is charged in a reasonable amount of time. The question is how long is safe? I think a couple of days would be OK, but I would be worried if it was left for a week.

While I am mentioning the protection circuit, there is also a temperature sensor. This will prevent the battery from being charged or discharged if it gets to hot (I don't know about to cold). In this case, the circuit will probably reset once the battery cools down. But, you might have to disconnect the battery or charger to trigger this.

David

 

it would be nice to know the review author's profession as most review i read from magazines or forums are not from specialist in that specific profession but just amateur specialist or column writers, there are some unavoidable inaccurate or misleading information delivered.

 

davidfor,

As to the question how long is safe, I've seen an old toshiba notebook battery die (completely and forever after) by discharging it at the BIOS until the notebook turned off and waiting less than 90 minutes before charging it. Or, at least trying to charge it.

Never worked after that.

Unless you have the charger plugged in and ready to charge up the dead, dead (0%) battery, I wouldn't recommend leaving it on the BIOS screen until it turns off.

Cheers!

 

Thanks for the guide, it is very comprehensive and useful.
However, I have 2 more questions.
1. Device indicator will tell you the battery is in full-state (100%), the question here is: the indicator is accuracy or not, is it really full?
2. Should we charge to full-state (100%) or less? I mean when we should stop the charging (how much percent of full-state? 95%?).

 

I have seen previous reports of this happening, but haven't had the misfortune for any of my batteries. I suppose it does depend on the laptop and battery design about how much difference there is between the empty and the damage occurring points are. The amount of time could also be dependent on how old the battery is.

It is probably as accurate as the state reported via the laptop/OS. The battery level you see when using the laptop is reported by the battery. The laptop BIOS or the OS might reinterpret it, but it probably doesn't.

As far as I am concerned, you should always recharge to 100%. The reasons given for not are to slow aging of the battery. My Samsung laptop has a utility to set the maximum to 80% with aging as the reason. But, I haven't seen any references to back this up. I keep the battery in the laptop and fully charged so that if I want to unplug, I can.

There is a recommendation for not fully charging Li-Ion batteries if they are to be stored. In this case, charge it to 40% and store in a cool dry place (sealed in a fridge but not the freezer is OK). I don't know about this from personal experience as I have never stored a battery.