Outrageous Battery Wear

I just got my Dell Studio XPS 16" laptop with a 9 cell battery on Saturday.

I used this system information tool on that day, it showed my battery as having 0% wear.

Today (2 days later) it is at 6.7% and has lost 512 mWh of it's total full charge capacity...

Is it me or do lithium batteries just suck?

Here is the tool I used so you can try it:

http://www.hwinfo.com/download32.html

Here are my results:

 

I'd give it another day or two and if it keeps climbing like that in wear, I'd be giving Dell a call. The Sony in my sig only has about 1.5% after about 6 months.

 

I've seen it jump pretty quickly...

My Vaio is at 8,6% now (soon 2 years - but used daily)

It went 1%-3%-7,2%-8,6%...

 

I tried it and mine shows 0% battery wear even after over a year of usage

 

The first 3 hours I used my GT627 it went from 0% wear to 5%.

Ever since then I have left my notebook plugged in. No wear since then.

You get wear when you use the battery, if you dont use it, the wear is very very slow

Anyway, after under a year of usage, I had one battery with >50% wear and the other with > 80% wear. I tried to calibrate the one with 80% wear, that just took it to 83%, lol.

From now on all my notebooks will be plugged in as much as possible.

And I agree lithium batteries suck. I want nickel.

 

That assumption doesn't work - I've been using my Vaio pretty much daily - and take it to university several times per week where its used on battery and AC - still just 8,6%.

Why - Vista's "smart charging" (i.e. no charging for 1% or less) and my Vaio's battery care that allows charging only to 80%.

Leaving a battery only plugged in and fully charged will let it wear down too.

Since Vista its not too bad, but on XP the laptop would charge the battery even for 0,1%.

You need a good balance between use and non-use (I possibly overuse it, but hey its a laptop, its portable).

 

Well that's probably true for most notebooks, but it depends on the charger.

For the MSI gt627, the best thing you can do (apart from take out the battery) is keep the notebook plugged in always.

It's written here:
http://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=129715.0

Worked for another NBR member, so I copied him now and I've had basically no wear since then.

 

That thread doesn't mention a specific user.

And its very general too - it doesn't say "don't use your battery" by the way.

 

Weird? HWINFO doesn't read my battery, at all.

EDIT: nvm, I got it. I'm at 13.5%, after of year of being plugged in 24/7. Not bad.

 

Battery wear is not a very reliable measurement; I would try testing the actual battery life instead.

 

My battery wear is 50%+++ after 14 months... I'm in a right mood of using my free spare battery now... its very irritating... i want nickel batteries too!

 

Nikel Metal Hybird (NiMH) batteries are even worse as you have to discharge them fully else they wear even quicker than LiOn (lithium Ion) batteries.

 

well anyways , i want better batteries!

 

Its called a Lithium Ion battery - alternatively a Lithium Polymer battery.

Your first statement also makes me think - you didn't use XP did you? Its a battery killer - Vista is better, and Win7 should be too.
(Not charging for every 0,1%)

And the battery care function my Vaio has (charge to 80% - or 50%, but that wouldn't be enough for me) is useful too.

 

Mmm, -1.411% battery wear. Battery has been fully cycled last week and this week. The same capacity still stands.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5173443

 

The specific user was on this forum and sent me a PM:

I did test the battery life, wear was a very accurate measurement in my case.

I use Xp

WTH, magic battery

 

It's not unusual to have a higher capacity than design, especially if it's a new battery.

 

Today it shows 9.4%

 

surely thats a ring up and complain moment afoot then.

 

Between this and the pixel issue, I think you should ask for a repair or a new one.

 

Very true.
My dell battery is picked up as 331.3% wear
Is that right, well you decide. I get 6 minutes of battery life on my E1505.

I need to repair that battery when I get a chance. They are such a pain to open.

K-TRON

 

It's not a pixel issue if you read the thread...

 

Well Moral Hazard, XP is a battery killer - reason:
It decided to continually keep it topped up at a maximum 100%.

This means your charge drops by 0,1% and the battery will be charged by the OS.

I don't think XP overcharges the battery - but I've never dug into this.

Vista will only charge the battery once a certain threshold is met - might be 1-2% - not ideal either, but better than XP.

And every bit of charging will wear it out a bit more - especially if you top it up.

 

I've used Vista and windows 7 so far... no xp and i'm nver using it... the most ugliest and useless operating system ever... its so hard to find stuff in it...

I'll try calibrating this useless battery this week and see if it helps... it's got 62% wear now...

 

Prediction: after calibration you will have even greater wear...

Suggestion, don't do it

 

If that were true, the batteries from my older notebooks would be worn down even more than sean473's battery. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5103097&postcount=3

 

So according to your post, the key to preserving battery condition is to frequently discharge it fully?

 

The key is to make sure the battery sees a full discharge and recharge on a monthly basis. I explained it here. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5929236&postcount=15

Heat generated from the cells as a byproduct of increased current draw also plays a large factor so taxing the notebook on battery will also affect the life of the battery. This is why I don't play games on battery.

 

Interesting info. That might explain why my T42 still has 5 hours of battery life with 10% wear after 6 years. Thanks!

 

is it Lithium Ion ??

 

what's the mechanism for capacity sensor of the rechargeable battery? how accurate it would be from real capacity? it would be nice to see the detailed info from real expert in this field.

 

soviet, like I said before, you have magic batteries.

for normal batteries, the more cycles you put them through, the more wear you get.

Calibrating wont reverse wear, it serves a different purpose.

Dont calibrate.

battery wear is calculated like this:
(1 - (last full charge cap / designed cap))

Calibrating will just make your batttery life remaining estimate accurate, but at the cost if more wear...

 

Calibrating the battery serves a second purpose of making sure that the entire usable capacity of the cells are kept active. The chemical state will slowly degrade if it is not periodically recycled, which is more harmful to the battery than going through a discharge/recharge. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5640969&postcount=820

 

maybe you are right, but I think the battery uni website says otherwise.

Either way, the immediate result sean will have after calibrating will be higher wear.

However, maybe in the long run, your advice is correct.

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

So that is why I don't agree with you.

I don't know who is right, you or the bat uni. I don't care really. I keep my powercord plugged in as much as possible.

 

There are a lot of things that Battery University does not cover. One of those is internal current impedance. All Li-ion cells are given their current (capacity) rating based off of a 0.5A draw. Of course, if the device is drawing little current, say a small flashlight with a draw of 0.3A (300mAh), then the rated capacity would be higher. The same applies for higher current draws. If the cell has a relatively high internal resistance, then it will be more difficult for the cell to drive the requested amount of current to the device, in which the actual capacity rating would be lower as the current draw gets higher. Like I said before, heat also plays a factor here, so impedance and heat will both lower the true capacity of the battery. But keep in mind that the actual capacity will differ at different current draws, and since notebooks aren't always linearly using power, the true capacity will always be different, and we see that in the form of how fast the capacity is draining in our software battery monitors. For example, lets say I want to replace my current battery, a three cell 3800mAh 42Wh Li-po battery with better cells. For the purpose of this example, lets just pretend it uses Li-ion 18650 cells since they are easier to find and replace. Each cell in the original battery is 3800mAh, but I find 4000mAh cells on the market. These 4000mAh cells have a high resistance and a swap them into my battery. At idle, my notebook shows just a little improvement in battery time since the new cells are rated 200mAh more than the previous ones. But when I start playing games or watching a Blu-ray movie from my ODD, the battery time of the new cells are actually worse than the original ones because of the DC resistance and additional heat produced because of it.

Going back to reality, my Li-po battery pack cannot be "upgraded" by the end-user because it uses exclusive cells. But for you guys, you can replace your cells with the best on the market. Right now, the industry standard and best in regards to conventional Li-ion 18650 cells are made by AW; the AW 2600mAh 18650 with a flat top. AW makes the lowest resistance cells bar none and are coveted by all electronics gurus, including myself, as the battery to beat.

There are other factors to cover in regards to the art of batteries and battery wear, but my fingers are starting to shake now after a long martial arts class. But the information above is probably the most relevant out of all of the aspects and is the easiest to work with by the "average Joe" end-user.

300-500 discharge/charge cycles is a rated statistical average depending on the industry that the cell is being used in. It is not a rating for the true chemistry of the cell.

I understand that Battery University is a reliable and scientifically sound reference to fall back upon, but I do have my beefs with them and there are indeed some flaws in their engineering. Then again, who am I but just some crazed fourth year computer engineering student. I respect those guys over at Battery University. I've read almost all of their dissertations when I took power and circuitry class before. I'm just putting forward my theory on the subject.

 

I calibrated my battery once and the wear went higher LOL
that's it .. no more (purposed calibration) for me.
I'm good with 19% wear level for 2 years

 

That's probably the real capacity of your battery after being shown the offset, uncalibrated capacity for so long. Sometimes it hurts to see the truth.

 

That's what my last few post in this thread were all about


By the way, when I did my tests, I did them right, not just watching the wear, but also timing the real battery life.

 

maybe it just calibrated itself.... like the first time you used it, it had not discharged b4, so it had not known its accurate percentile capacity (idk, just taking a blind swing there)

 

The premise that I am trying to address here is that brute discharging and recharging may not be as bad as leaving the battery dormant at 100% for it's entire service under the user's ownership. Each battery is different in circuit configuration, quality, capacity, etc, so this concept may not always be true for all batteries. But the general rule is that they need to be recalibrated every so often under idle or light usage so to not to unnecessarily tax the cells.

 

Id like to add that Windows 7 has a glitch which wears the battery down to a point where the OS (Windows 7 and Ubuntu) complains about it needing replacement.

 

Which is an incorrect myth.
If that is the case then how come my battery never experienced this drastic wear?
I've been using Win 7 since RC and haven't encountered the wear problem.

Windows XP's battery meter was very unreliable for one thing and 7's battery meter is much more efficient.
If win 7 has been giving users warnings their batteries have to be replaced, even if they are new, then it's far more likelier the batteries themselves are damaged.

If the OS was responsible, EVERYONE would be affected, and this is obviously contained to a small % of notebook users.
Predominantly the ones who migrated from XP to 7 after years spending on the former.
In some cases, 7 reported this with new batteries, which it later turned out the batteries themselves are not working properly.

 

I actually disagree with u moral... i've done calibration before and it has reduced the wear and increased battery life... its just that i have to do it a few times..

 

and did the first 1-2 times the wear get worse?

 

don't think so... can't remmember.... did it in nov-dec when i was preparing for exams... brain was remembering maths.... not all this.

 

It is a glitch that happens with some configs not all of them. Microsoft is still investigating even though they think they have nothing to do with it.

 

Rihac, you need to update your knowledge of the situation.

msft and the hardware makers have ALL come out and said that Win7 is accurate in it's measurement and prediction of battery life.

Previous versions of windows were not so accurate. And this is what has got people mucked up on the issue.

 

First, you need to update your knowledge on the spelling of my username
Second, http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...icrosoft+windows+7+battery&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=

This is VERY debatable.

 

Yes it is, the 9 cells were made in Japan by Matsush*ta (Panasonic).

 

This cannot be right - I've had my current laptop for over a year now, my battery runtime is down from 4.5hrs to 2hrs max, but the program shows wear level of 0.0%. How come?