Laptop batteries, (especially if they are a "second
hand") will often be in a bad shape, which usually corresponds to a shorter
work time. What is important to know - all the batteries have a certain amount
of charge-discharge cycles which might be already drawn out or it could be the
case that the battery is too old to hold the charge. Usual life span count in
charge-discharge cycles for the most commonly used in laptop computers
lithium-ion batteries is approximately 400 times. Buying an old system, pay
special attention to the laptop batteries, be cautious, it might look new, but
actually have remaining only a few or none of the working cycles.
The most
obvious sign of old laptop batteries is decreasing working time after full
recharge, battery will lose its capacity - the most important parameter, after
voltage and amperage.
The average usage
length for a battery can be from 2 to 5 years or more, depending on work
intensity and proper maintenance. What we mean saying "maintenance"? Batteries shouldn't be left
discharged, in that case you will significantly reduce their active life span.
And of course a good practice is - always follow the original manufacturer
instructions if it is available to you.
If you have an
old battery that does not seem to be charging well, you may try to fix a problem
"training" it.
It is done by charging it fully and then consequently discharging it. You may
discharge laptop batteries simple running any program, or listening your
favorite CD. It really doesn't matter what you're going to do, but make sure you
have constant power discharge to complete zero, your laptop should perform
relatively intense power consuming task. Don't let it go to standby mode or
hibernate. This cycle needs to be done at least three times in order to evoke
the normal working mode. Not always this will work well, but at least after that
you might be pretty sure about your batteries conditions.
Buying new
laptop batteries always check your laptop system requirements.
There
are several simple things that you can do
for extending life span of your laptop
batteries:
Unplug or turn off components that are currently not in use - any components
than use the power from your laptop batteries, like external HDD, PCMCIA cards,
modems, all sorts of peripheral equipment that is plugged into USB or FireWire
ports.
Adjust the brightness and
contrast of your screen to the possible lower point. If your system allow
you to do so, use a black & white mode. Lower the number of unnecessary
disk accesses. You access the disks when you open or closing programs,
running intense application like DVD or CD player, or using program which has
automatic save mode, so if you can afford it - disable it.
Doing all of these you could
possible save as much and even more than 20% of energy of your laptop batteries.
