reset battery

I've bought a "used" battery which was sold as new. It has 5 cycles on it, but it only holds 70mW instead of 60700mW. When the battery is fully charged, I can run my 19 for well over 4 hours.
Is there a way to reset the amount of 70mW's to something more realistic or can you hard-reset the chip inside the battery?

 

Have you run the battery calibration?

 

This has a eprom or eeprom chip in it to remember what is was set at. Several have tried but I don't think anyone has found the trick to reset them yet.

 

I did a recalibration, it took 4 (four!!) seconds to discharge the battery!
I have now depleted the battery to zero percent. I know Li-ion batteries don't like that, but I hope to reset it by recalibrating it again.

Reason I asked is that researchers last year found a way to implement a small virus in an Apple battery... So I hoped people here could tell me how to reset it on a panasonic. Could be as simple as connecting two pins on the connector?!

 

4hrs refers to this used battery or your original battery? 70mW's sounds like the battery sat on a shelf discharged for an extended period of time. It's probably never going to work properly.

Do you use BatteryBar? A useful utility that many here use. See what it says about your batteries.

Osiris Development - BatteryBar, the most accurate battery meter for Windows

 

Lion batteries have ZERO memory effect for charging before it's completely depleted and don't NOT get hurt whatsoever if you deplete them all the way man.

Just clearing that up

 

@Glen, thanks, I haven't used that, I'll look into that.

@Rob, AFAIK, Li-ion batteris do have virtual no memory, but depleting them beyond 5% orso does hurt their chemistry. It's better to recharge them while they are half full then to deplete them fully, like you would a ni-cad battery.

But at this moment it looks like it is not just the controls that are off. The battery got really hot when I tried to charge it from 0% up again and wouldn't go past 80% orso. I think I'm ready to throw this thing into the recycling bin.

 

when I get home in about a hour I will post. a pic of batterybar. so don't throw it yet

 

This is the info it give you

 

Battery bar says exactly the same, 99,9% wear just a few mW capacity left. If anyone is in need of a second battery for a CF-19, let me know. It's difficult working with an unknown battery capacity in the field. It holds at least 4 hours of charge with the brigtness at 100%, playing a movie and doing a virusscan at the same time. It has 8 cycles on it.
It's just like driving a car with a broken fuel gauge, it works, but it's inconvenient. And bloody annoying when you're in the middle of nowhere without a refill

 

This site has much information about batteries, a tiny part of which I've copied. I think it's worth reading the whole Li-ion section if you have the time.


Charging Lithium-Ion Batteries


Li-ion should never be discharged too low, and there are several safeguards to prevent this from happening. The equipment cuts off when the battery discharges to about 3.0V/cell, stopping the current flow. If the discharge continues to about 2.70V/cell or lower, the battery’s protection circuit puts the battery into a sleep mode. This renders the pack unserviceable and a recharge with most chargers is not possible. To prevent a battery from falling asleep, apply a partial charge before a long storage period.
Battery manufacturers ship batteries with a 40 percent charge. The low charge state reduces aging-related stress while allowing some self-discharge during storage. To minimize the current flow for the protection circuit before the battery is sold, advanced Li-ion packs feature a sleep mode that disables the protection circuit until activated by a brief charge or discharge. Once engaged, the battery remains operational and the on state can no longer be switched back to the standby mode.
Do not recharge lithium-ion if a cell has stayed at or below 1.5V for more than a week. Copper shunts may have formed inside the cells that can lead to a partial or total electrical short. If recharged, the cells might become unstable, causing excessive heat or showing other anomalies. Li-ion packs that have been under stress are more sensitive to mechanical abuse, such as vibration, dropping and exposure to heat.

 

The ACPI-compliant controller in all modern laptop battery is calibrated to allow more than sufficient headroom for the safety of the Li-Ion cells inside; when they report a percentage, it is based not only on battery absolute voltage, but also on information learned through the charge/discharge cycle. It will NEVER allow the battery to discharge under load to a point where it can damage the cells; it will do a hard cut-off and simply disconnect the load (your Toughbook). The percentage reported is based on the available depletive capacity; in other words, 0%-100% of the battery's capacity which you can safely use. In most cases this reflects an actual cell voltage of 4.1-4.2V absolute maximum (Dependent upon precise cell chemistry), to between 3.6 and 3.0V minimum based on expected current draw. The higher the current draw, the higher your minimum safe voltage.

The problem is not in the hardware, but in the software. The controller probably thinks that the batteries have been disconnected, or it recognizes that due to extended shelf-storage, the cells may have been self-discharged to a level where they may be questionable.

Your best bet is to load-test the battery for several charge-discharge cycles, then do a battery calibration again & tell us what happens.

I suggest setting all your power management on battery mode so it only alarms, no action, at both 10% & 3%, then either runa a DVD on continuous play or play a folder with videos in it over your network. Make SURE it runs until the battery kills the laptop, NOT Windoze setting it to Hibernate or Standby.

If you're lucky, you may be able to make Windoze and the battery "relearn" the curve of the not-really-dead cells. Good luck.

mnem
*Running low*

 

Thats some usefull information!
I don't know if I'll go trough all this thoug. I've got one battery that has around 500 cycles, one with 150 and I ordered a new one as well. Now I've tasted the luxury of having two batterys that last 4 and 6 hours each under real, every day use (3G on, display comfortable for outdoor use, music on, searching a bit on the internet and working in word) I can work all day outside and not having to come inside if I don't want to.
I really, really love it!

Just to give you an idea why I NEED a Toughbook, I'll show you the office I had yesterday....


I often travel to clients (shipyards, large construction sites and companies and the likes) and in between I like to sit outside and enjoy the fresh air, a bit of solitude and the freedom. Or when my office-neighbours get in a (phone)fight again, or the heating is set to hellish temperatures or are just folks running around like its an obstacle course, I also like to go out and find a nice quiet place. With my Macbook's (Air/Pro) I was always fighting to see anything if there was more light than a good dark overcast and if there was a good dark overcast I would worrying if rain (or bird-poop, drinks or the likes) would render it useless. And with a Toughbook I don't need to worry. I also have a Canon inkjet printer with li-ion battery and a small fujitsu snap-scan.
there is just one problem left to tackle: when it is cold I like to do office work outside as well. snugpack provides some good clothing for that. Good boots, good socks, nice watch cap, but it's my hands that suffer. I can't keep them typing longer than 10-15 minutes in quiet weather at freezing temperatures. I tried gloves, but all of them are tho thick to be able to (touch) type, heat packs at the wrist didn't help either.
I know some of you live in pretty cold places, so, any advice on that perhaps

 

Now that is an office to die for....:thumbsup: