Battery discharged completely!

I take very good care of my things like my laptop but my sister doesn't. She completely discharged the battery by not putting the Notebook to sleep. Could this complete discharge have serious implications on the battery life in the future? Man I am so depressed!

 

oh relax.

Vista;s default power settings automatically put it to sleep/hibernate when it reaches 5%. unless you disabled this in the advanced power settings

If it completely reaches 0% then you should be worried as one of the cells polarity might reverse.

 

I only changed the normal settings under power saver which is the mode the notebook was in. Never touched Advanced settings. So does that mean I and my beautiful Notebook are good to go. Thanks a lot for the help Flippy!

 

The polarity can reverse from a complete discharge?! You learn something serious every day.

Grand Admiral

 

Just to add to my post it was actually in hibernation which it has been going into despite me putting it to sleep. I automatically makes a transition from Sleep to hibernation after about 30 minutes or so of sleep!

 

Yes, its actually a good idea to run it down to that level. It will help calibrate the battery. I do it quite often.

Go to your Advanced Power Settings > Battery . Have a look here, if it makes you feel better.

Theres 2 warning/preventive systems in place. One is the low battery notification/action and the other is critical notification/action. You can see all the settings here

 

Hi.

It`s best not to go below 40% discharge if you can help it, li-ion batterys like to be charged frequently.

I dont suppose once of twice will hurt, it will help re-calibrate the battery meter.

But never let one go totally flat.

regards

John.

 

Quick google-
"The stronger cells of a battery (several cells connected in series) impose a voltage of reverse polarity across a weaker cell during a deep discharge."

This is why you shouldnt drain it to 0% or even less. It could render the battery useless

 

Apparently I was planning to calibrate it this weekend as it did drain some percent of battery life over night i.e. 3-4 pc and the charging also seemed slow. As of now the recharging is speeding ahead. About 50 percent in approximately 30 minutes. Seems to have worked.

@ flipfire I just don't fiddle around with advanced stuff that often. I never touched it. Plus I freaked out and set every thing to default as soon as I opened the lid.

But what still amazes me is why did it not go to sleep in the first place in 20 minutes as it was set to. A download was in progress so could that be the reason? I think it. Thank you all for the help!

 

It will only go to sleep if its completely idle. The downloads might have interrupted it.

You can force it to sleep through the advanced power settings. Set the low battery level to what ever % and set the action to Sleep or shutdown. Once it hits that battery level it will do whatever action you choose

On the advanced power setting you can change the critical/warning % levels and actions

Mine shuts down automatically when theres 6% left.

 

Thank you all. Problem has finally been solved. Actually it wasn't there in the first place. All in the Mind as they say!!