Werid Battery Issue

Ok, I got my laptop for Christmas from my folks in DEC 08, and just the other day (4/1/09.... no joke) my laptop pretended that there was no battery life or that it was low. The little orange light was on and everything.... Yet I had left my laptop plugged in all night long. I don't use it on battery alone much, just when I'm in my 1hr classes, and I treat this thing like its a porcelain doll. Sometimes the laptop will say it's got 20 min left, hibernate, and when i turn it back on there's full power. Other times I'll go quickly plug in the adapter, and it all of a sudden has full battery life when i unplug it two seconds later.

Its done this a couple times now and its a little annoying, and worrisome I suppose.

Any ideas?

Lady Daioh

 

What model do you have??

Assuming you have a recent ThinkPad, you can view the remaing battery capacity (Full charge vs. "Design Capacity") using Power Manager.

Open up Power manager (click on the green battery icon in the taskbar), switch to ADVANCED view, go to the Battery tab, and look at the stats.

You should see the following:

• Status
• Remaining percentage
• Remaining Time
• Remaining Capacity
• Full Charge Capacity
• Current
• Voltage
• Wattage
• Temperature
• Cycle Count
• Manufacturer Name
• Manufacture Date
• First used Date
• Serial Number
• Bar-Code number:
• FRU part number
• Device chemistry
• Design capacity
• Design voltage

If "Full charge capacity" is substantially less (less than 70%) of the "Design capacity", then you most likely have a defective battery and you should get it replaced (you should hae a 1 year battery warranty). It's also possible that you have a bad cell, this is most likely the case if the battery life drops in chunks (e.g. from 66% to 33% in <5 minutes).

If "Full charge capacity" is close to "Design capacity", then you will need to look into your setting and see if you can reduce wattage to improve battery life.

Overall, more information is simply required to effectively troubleshoot your problem.