NO MORE Vaios For Me.

Well, actually, no more Sony products for me period.

Absolutely absurdity. After 1.5 years of basically no usage, the battery goes dead on my C-140G. The total hours running on battery is probably less than 48 hours.

and this is before another Vaio F seris dying on me 2 years earlier. I feel Sony pays no attention to build quality. It's the 21st century, 2006 and they have chronic defects in batteries and even exploding batteries (OEM Sony made cells in Dells, HP... big news 2/3yrs ago?)

I always knew Vaios were 75% brand name and 25% looks, I must have been out of my mind buying a second Vaio!

 

I have a friend in college who has a Vaio and loves it, except that 6 months into ownership he had a twenty minute battery life. So now it's a portable desktop.

His screen is really vivid, though. If that counts for anything.

 

i hope you mean 48 sec or min. battery life on laptops diminish after a year. i had a Compaq for a year and it got 30 mins. but that was no reason to ban a entire company maybe just ban viaos.

 

48 hours! I am totally with you, this is unacceptable by todays standards. I would stay away from Sony if I were you. My other laptops all run about 160-180 hours, which is ok, I wish it would be around 200 hours at least...

but seriously... other manufacturer's are no better...

 

- Battery guide.

I suggest you take a look at. It has great ways to preserve battery life and how to store it when your not using it(could come in handy with your next laptop since the "problem" just doesnt effect Sony.

 

I've had my inspiron 6400 for about 15-16 months and it's still getting 100% battery life.

 

i mean if you take bad care of them

 

It doesn't take a scientist to understand that, yes, Li-ion battery will degrade over time. BUT it also doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that something is inherently very wrong with design/parts when the battery completely fails after 1.5 years with very-below average usage.

 

And I'm not complaining about my poor battery only at 84% on full charge after 1.5 years. I talking about my battery being a useless piece of brick after 1.5 years totaling 48- hours of usage.

 

they deteriorate if you don't use it or not, it happened on my first laptop

 

My 4 years old T still can be on battery for about 4 hours...using it every day at college where is no plug...do I have something special?

 

Not really.

Of every brand batteries fail sometimes. It does not matter whether it's Lenovo, Apple or Sony.

Overall Sony is actually quite a reliable brand for laptops:

 

Yeah, and THE ONLY notebook cell maker known to have produced exploding notebook batteries!

 

my fujitsu had a prety good life, about 2 years strong, and then 3rd year was alittle decent.. and now the laptop can't even boot up without the battery nocking it out before bootup.

i don't think its stopping me from getting a new vaio.

 

If you don't charge your battery for 1.5 year man it's sure going to die.

Let your car 1.5 years without starting it (wich means charging it) and then tell me your battery isn't dead..

I know vaios aren't the best notebooks when it comes to battery life, but, wichever laptop you don't charge for more tha a year then it is your mistake... anyways if you need battery life, then you must know that vaios aren't great performers. Me, for example, I bought mine because of the screen and build quality of the laptop itself, knowing that when new, it won't ever reach 3 hours of battery life. And no, it never did. (6 cell, of course you can buy a 9 cell bat too).

Aaaanyways. Charge your battery more often!

 

Here's a useful tip: When using you're notebook, charge the battery whenever possible. Always try to keep it fully charged. This will make the battery last a lot longer.

 

Actually it is not a good idea to leave it fully charged at all time if you aren't going to use it. The best is around 40-50%.

 

I never specified a range. 40-50% is fine...

 

I reckon not using the battery (i.e. using AC power basically 100% of the time and not doing regular discharge/charge cycles) for 1-2 years will be enough to kill a notebook battery.
Certainly that happened to me with Compaq and IBM Thinkpad work laptops that I used in the past in that way... it's not a Sony/Vaio-specific thing. My Thinkpad got so bad that it would often die on battery just being carried from my desk to a meeting room in the same building! But I know it's my fault for not looking after the battery. They really don't like being plugged in all the time...

Anyway, your post begs the question: why did you buy a notebook if you haven't used it on battery for more than 48 hours total in 1.5 years? Surely you'd have been better off with a desktop for this kind of usage?

 

1. Dont leave your laptop plugged in for days/weeks with the battery connected, ie using your laptop as a desktop replacement, this will kill your battery.
2. If it dies within the year sony are pretty good at getting a replacement swap within a couple of days here in the UK anyway.
3. Some manufacturers ie samsung only give batteries 6 months warranty which should tell you something!

 

According to this 7 pages problem thread on the same exact battery: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=59100

I noticed Sony replaced some batteries even after the warranty. If they did that, it means they know there was a manufacture defect in that model.

I haven't called them yet, but how good is Sony with this kind of thing?


AND Amazing! A replacement battery cost $230 on Amazon!!! They seriously expect me to pay that kind of money, especially when the same one just died on my completely after a year?! Talk about robbery.

 

Meh. If you want robbery, you need to buy the same thing in Europe...

 

One other possible explanation is that one or more of the individual cells has dropped lower than the allowed voltage (I believe the charging circuitry will refuse to charge the cell after it hits that point) due to leaving the battery uncharged for such a long period of time. That's why unused batteries should be left at around 40% charged and occasionally charged to keep it at 40%.

 

It really depends on how the battery was; if it was charged to 100% and you let it sit around that's bad. It stresses the battery, due to the amount of energy and how the chemicals are interacting.

Like 40% and put into a freezer would make it last a long time.

 

What kind of Vaio do you have? What are the specs?

 

Really??? "Always try to keep it fully charged." didn't specify a range?

Gary

 

Come on Gary, lets not nit pick at each other...though i totally agree with your point.

But yea 40-50% is good since doesn't put too much stress on the chemicals due to abundance of energy. Putting it in the freezer might be a bit too much the regular fridge or just a cool place would probably be a better idea

 

I have seen referneces to being able to keep the battery at 40% while in the machine and on AC charge. This was about a Sony specific app that did the job. But I have been unable to locate the details. Anyone else know about this?

Gary

 

Well not 40%...
But the power management on my Vaio SZ71VN/X is capable of keeping the battery cherge at a maximum of either 50% or 80% (I don't think I'm able to change that)

This relates to the Sony power management - e.g. "Vaio optimised"

(When running Vista, I can't tell for XP (WHich I prefer))

I personally use the 80% loading, also because I may unplug my laptop anytime to use somewhere else where its more comfortable.

Adittionally the Sony application keeps the computer from charging "small amounts" like 1 or 2% of capacity.
(I don't know the exact frame)
And it will discharge you battery if it is above the set "charge level".

I hope that helps a bit.

 

I see no such setting on the FZ Vaio optimized settings under Vista. Can you provide a screen shot?

Gary

 

Not directly power management (sorry) but via the vaio control center:





So the correct path:
Vaio Control Center -> Battery Care.

Sorry about the german OS; but I think its reasonably clear anyway.

 

No "battey care" option in Vaio Control Center on my FZ. Anyone else with an FZ able to see this? I did a clean install a year ago and may not have loaded the app or library that controls this. Any idea what actual app is running when this dialog box is open??

Gary

 

I had a look in my task manager, but I couldn't find anything that could fit this application.

So, any other SZ owners who can help here??

 

Were you looking at applications, processes or services?

Gary

 

It's called Battery Care Utility and it's available in almost every recent utility package in VAIO-Link for Vista and the XP version is available individually here.

 

I looked at processe and services.

It is not listed under applications, its not an open programme.

I might have overlooked something amongst the services - and I couldn't find anything meaningful amongst the processes, only the usual "junk" like the sony event sercice...

But then, I'm not to sure what I'm looking for either - technically the tool could be hiddden anywhere....

 

The utility, BatteryCare.exe, is stored in the Battery Care Function folder in %programfiles%\Sony. Make sure that VAIO Event Service is stopped in Services before installing this utility.

 

Doesn't seem to be available for the FZ series machines. I downloaded the utilities package and all that was there was "Battery Checker", the piece of JUNK that keeps you from installing a non-Sony battery.

Gary

 

I found a copy from another model and installed it. It does show up in Vaio control center, but when started all of the controls are greyed out.

Does anyone with an FZ model have this utility running?

Gary

 

48 hours of use time is ridiculous

I dont' see anything wrong with that complaint. I think its defective though. Li-ion batteries usually can burn through several times that amount.

 

Dmonk, we are not speaking of a battery that failed after 48 hours, but we are speaking about a battery which was never used except for 48 hours.

And there lies a subtle difference.

I'm just wondering something else, how is one able to estimate that one has used the battery for 48 hours in 1,5 years??

I couldn't tell how long I've run my new SZ on battery and I've only had it for a little over a week.

 

Well, this computer isn't exactly the lightest thing around so I don't carry it around much, and when I do, i bring the AC adapter alone. Most of the 48 hours on battery were of my using it while sitting on the sofa, and this is something i rarely do.

I'm calling Sony tomorrow and I'll let you know how it turns out!

 

Any batteries used for that short of a period over 1.5 years is prone to fail sooner. I think this is a pretty ridiculous complaint; if the user can't figure out how to take care of their laptop battery properly then they need to suck it up and pay out for a new batt...

 

Well, I just got off the phone with support in Philippines, more specifically with Ben and Harry the supervisor. And what do you know... after 1 hour of talk, and arguing at the end- NO REPLACEMENT!

At first it was nice talk, you know. Then it got down to reasoning and telling the guy the 70 post 7 page problem thread here about the same battery and same issue. No go. Eventually it was my giving the poor guy 2 options:1. Put me to higher supervisor. or 2. Replace the battery. Harry wouldn't do either and eventually hold me no about 20 times and hung up on me.

Called in again, got a different guy, got same answer.

Amazing I have to say. Absolutely amazing. Not surprised. As I said before SONY is all brand and looks nothing else.


Compare that SONY support with IBM support call made right after it. The call takes me to Atlanta, GA. After 10 minutes I have a new keyboard coming in 1 bus. day.

 

why don't you read this http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=59100 before talking.

 

Let's get this straight. You left your battery sitting for most of 1.5 years no?

Most of the users in that thread were actually using their battery on a more regular basis. If you have only used a combined 48 hours of battery usage in 1.5 years and left it sitting then it's a no brainer that the battery will die.

 

yeah 48+ hours running off of the battery, but the computer the battery was in, was heavily used.

 

Ah that makes a whole lot more sense then. Your original post made it sound like you used it for 48 hours in total and left the battery unplugged / out of the laptop the whole time...

1.5 years is not bad if you have used your computer heavily. It really varies from people to people based on usage and what type of applications you run. Was a battery care program available for your laptop? If not, that might explain the shorter battery life.

 

Heat, sunlight, etc. can all make the battery wear out faster. Ideally, storing the battery for long periods of time requires it to be in a fridge.

 

Well, I'll try to call again tomorrow. It looks like I might have to give in and buy a new one after all- even so, I'm not buying a Sony battery, I have bought enough Sony products to know their accessory pricing scheme. Sony really let me down here, I have been a very loyal customer for past decade, just look at my living room...