Lenovo N200 and <1h on battery?!

Hello people,

I've been a proud owner of a Lenovo 3000 N200 laptop for a year and 5 months now. Since not more than 3-4 days ago my computer suddenly started lasting twice as little on battery as it used to.

When I first bought it, the 6 cell battery lasted about 2 hrs which gradually became an hour and a half and it's been like this for a year. Normally it would suffice to me (althought I would very much liked to have exta time). But like I said above, the past 3-4 days have been quite awful in terms of battery performance: while I used to have 1% per minute discharge, now it's twice as fast and I can hardly last 45-50 minutes without doing something energy-comsuming on the notebook, maily internet browsing (wireless) or watching movies. All in all, the same things I was doing before, but now for half the time.

At first I decided it must be connected to me upgrading to Windwos 7 and so I decided to try Vista again, but it was absolutely the same. All the sotware I tried lists my battery as having 0% wear. I ready through the Lenovo subforum here and I was shocked that other people get hours and hours out of their 6-cell batteris, while I can't last a single!

Could anyone of you please advise me as to what might be wrong and if there is a way to have my battery working normally again?

Thanks so much!

 

can you check the number of charge cycle, the design capacity and the actual capacity in Wh.

 

Your problem is due to aging battery cells, if you use these battery a lot then this is a common behaviour. A normal battery would allow you to charge anything between 300 to 500 times. Sometimes less and sometimes more, depending on how you use it.

 

I was suspecting it could be just plain old age, but was not sure.

Could you guide me how to check the cycles, capacity and so on, that you need to know?

Actually, don't know if I'm imagining, but I have the feeling that at the same time the battery started performing worse, the computer started getting hotter while working on it. And it's strange, becuase it's autumn now and it was not as hot even in summer!

 

You should able to check the status under power manager.

 

First, it seems ThinkPad Power Manager does not work on my N200, got a message "battery not installed". So I had to dig around for another software and finally got one whith cycle information, only to find out that... my battery does not support this kind of info!!! Check the attached screenshot for all the info I could get

 

This is a Thinkpad Feature only. Ideapads don't have this capability.

To the OP, sadly it sounds like your battery is on the verge of death. As others have posted they only last for so many years/cycles. Sorry bud.

 

Thanks, people! Seems like I'll be buying a new battery, but this time I'll go with the 9-cell one.

Don't know if it's acceptable to ask in this topic, but are there any general rules on how to use/charge batteries, so that they last relatively longer? I've heard something like removing a battery while at home and using AC... Anything else you could add?

 

If your home for extended periods of time, discharge the battery to 40% and store it. I don't recommend a fridge like some people because you have to be 100% positive no moisture will be exposed to the battery. Very difficult and dangerous in my opinion. Just leave it in a closet or something. 40% is very important compared to 100% because at 100% the battery will lose capacity at an accelerated rate. 40% is the sweet spot where when stored the battery won't lose capacity at such a high rate. Secondly, don't discharge the battery all the way to 0% and if it is at 100% don't use it for a couple of minutes (letting it drop a few percent) and then plug it back in. Just that little drop in percentage and recharging is counted as another cycle.

Keep these tips in mind and you'll be able to get the most out of your battery.

 

I have also come to find that, once the battery decides to die, it does so rather quickly.