VAIO TX Replacement Battery - Manufacturing Date?

Hi All,

The battery on my Vaio TX has started to wear significantly (gets only about 2 hours on max. battery settings). I ordered a new one from Sony Canada and it will be shipping from their head office in California, I believe.

What I am wondering is, is there any way to check the manufacturing date so that I don't end up getting one which has been sitting on the shelf for a while? My current battery only has a white bar code behind it, but no mention of any dates...

Thanks in advance.

 

Install RMClock and you will see the wear on your current battery and the amount of cycles it has.

 

Thanks, but that is not what I was asking. My battery is for sure worn, as I've tested it under battery saving conditions and it doesn't last very long, no software issues.

What I want to know is: once the new battery comes, how can I make sure it wasn't manufactured a long time ago and has been sitting on a shelf?

 

I did not explain well.

If the battery has been laying on the shelf for a long time, the fully charged capacity will not reach the designed capacity. You can check this with RMClock.

A battery will loose about 2% charge per year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Storage_temperature_and_charge

In other words, if your battery reaches you in 100% health you can be sure it hasn't been laying around too long.

 

Thanks, I guess you are right. However, my current battery shows about 50 Wh charge benig held at 100% (compared to 57 Wh which it should hold as new), and yet the battery barely lasts a third of the length of time it used to when it was new.

I wonder how accurate this RMclock is?

Also, from your wikipedia article, I assume they store batteries at room temperature (as it would be too expensive to put them all in a fridge), so that would cause 4% loss per year. The crappy part is that Sony only gives me 90-day warranty and there is a 30% restocking fee if I decide to return...

Oh well, this is the only way one can buy a genuine battery, and I'm sure I'm not the only one buying it so I'm probably not going to get something which was manufactured TOO long ago. We'll see what happens, I will keep you all posted.

 

In my experience RMClock is accurate.

If your battery still holds 50Wh charge, you should be able to calculate the battery life using the average power draw as stated by RMClock.

For example: If you put your brightness on 50%, put Vaio control center in max battery, put XP or Vista in Energy saving profile, what is your power draw?

 

Brightness: 50%, XP, WiFi on, max battery. When I first got it (lightly used and a year old) i got 4.5 hours.

Now, I get about 2 hours (with only Opera open, very small number of tabs, flash disabled, no antivirus, very little background programs)

 

Look in RMClock for your power draw. How much is it?

 

Around 12 000 mW.

 

RMClock is accurate, but it reads the capacity values from the battery. The battery may be inaccurate, as it may not 'mark' the reduced capacity and thus report higher capacity than it actually has.

You can see this by noticing how much the capacity level drops as you drain the battery. I have an SZ3 battery that is getting worn out, and I notice that the remaining charge drops very rapidly from 100% to about 75% then slows down there to the expected rate, so I guess that my battery has already lost 25% of its capacity but its still reporting that it has it. Most likely your battery is worn out, like mine.

 

If I did the math correctly you should be getting 4:15 hours with a 50 Wh battery. But you only get 2.

I think the best indicator of the health of the new battery will be your real battery life.