TZ: Battery charge to 80% after Recall

Hi All,

After getting my laptop back after the awful recall I noticed that it does not charge after it reaches 80%. They didn't take my charger nor my battery so I know my battery is working fine but I cannot find the setting where they've changed it. I guess they put it on this setting to ensure their batteries don't wear down when they do testing on my laptop and have it plugged in all day long.

It was nice to have a full battery because I can use my laptop for about 6 hours before I need to charge it. If I know I'll have it plugged in all day then I'll set it to 80% but would like to know how so I can do it when I need to.

I cannot seem to find the solution online and would rather not have to ring Sony.

PS. I'll post my recall experience another time - it was sent back twice by the way and I wasn't pleased!

Thanks in advance.

Likey

 

Check if your computer has a battery care function.

 

Go to the Start menu and find a program called "VAIO Control Center"
then
Go to "Battery Care Function" under "Power Management"
and uncheck the box

 

Oh yeah, that's where I found it before but forgot where it was. I kept trying to find it by right-clicking the battery icon then Power Options but it doesn't let you change it there.

Do the majority of you use the battery care function? I tend to charge it at work and then use it at home until it runs out later in the evening, then have to plug the power in. I'm not that clued up when it comes to batteries but from previous experience, my Dell D620 battery instantly died on me which sucked so this time I want to take care of it so it lasts a long time.

Many thanks,
Likey

 

LiIon battery don't have the memory effect like the bad old days of NiCads, but they also don't like being constantly 'topped up'. So if you're almost always using AC power, using the battery care function is a good idea. If you frequently discharge your battery fully before charging it fully again, you should get a good life out of your battery even charging to 100%.

If you're really obsessed with keeping your battery mint, you could remove it from the laptop when around 50% charged and leave it in the fridge (inside a ziplocked plastic bag) when you're using AC power... but that seems a little extreme to me.

 

I usually have the battery care function on and set to 80%
80% of battery life is enough to get me through my classes

 

Thanks. Perfect answer.
I posted the same question to VAIO Support Center and they told me to Restore My System to the status before I decided to limit battery charge to 80%.

 

Hello,
I use the battery carte fuinction on 80% on my SZ.
It'll last for roughly 4 hours - but I do plug it in every now and then at university so.

Its a good little feature to use if you can.
And that 1 hour I could gain from a full charge wouldn't make a difference.

 

I guess the 80% is a registry entry.

I would like to go to 90%, but I do not know where to set it. Battery care only allows for fixed 80% or 50% or off.

Any ideas how to do this?

 

There is another option that you can use to set a custom %. Look carefully at the descriptions (it may show 80% or 50% or 100% already, but you can modify it.)

My hybrid car is charged to 80% max. There may be some magic to the 80% number?

 

Are you sure?
I thought so too - checked on my SZ and there only seem to be the options 50% - 80% off (i.e. 100%)

 

Just checked, you are right, 50, 80 or 100%. Sorry for the misinformation.

 

Um, yes, they do. Very much, in fact.
What kills a Lithium based battery are two things:

1: Heat
2: Being discharged too much. The lower you go on the battery, the more you wear it out. You can go from 100% to 80% dozens of times without wearing it out as much as a single dip from 30% to 10%. The lower the charge, the more every extra minute will impact it.
If you go all the way down to 0%, you may damage the battery to the point that it no longer works.

When selecting "80%", what you really do is bump up the lower limit from 0% (which in reality isn't 0%, but probably around 10-15%) to 20%, leaving you with 80% capacity. But it's the bottom 20% that's shaved off, not the top.
Likewise, when selecting "50%", you can go from full to 50%, at which time the battery will lie and say it's empty. This ensures that you never go down to the really low values, and your battery will live longer.

By carefully topping up a battery as much as possible, and never go below 50% if I can help it, I have a LiIon battery here that's 7 years old and still about 70% as good as new.
In contrast, my wife wore out a battery in two years by only charging it when empty, and stopping charging it whenever full. Now it holds about a minute's worth of runtime.

 

So, in essence, you are saying that using the 50% charge option is the best? If so, can I leave AC connected all the time using the 50% charge option? When AC is connected all the time, how often does it top up?

 

If you almost always use it on AC and can live with shorter battery life when disconnected from AC, yes, choose the "max battery saver" (50%) to prolong battery life as much as possible.

Also set the fan speed to "performance" if you can live with the noise, to avoid warming up the battery too much. Heat is the #1 battery killer. (You can assign one of the two special keys under the speed switch to change the fan speed. I recommend doing so.)

There is a quite sophisticated circuitry in the battery charger that checks the battery and tops it off (trickle charges) as needed, but no more.

If you ever need to go away for a while (months), it's recommended that you deplete a Li-Ion battery to around 40-50% and take it out and store it in a cool and dry place.

 

Don't forget though: putting the fan on more often will result in more power being drawn, and consequently more battery cycles being used up (even when it is charged 100%).