Neglecting the care and maintenance of your laptop battery will seriously impair the ability to use the laptop when you need it away from an AC power supply. Investing in a little time and effort will repay you many times over by prolonging battery life and laptop use while mobile.
There are two general mistakes that users make with laptop batteries. First, they tend to use the laptop with the AC power supply continuously and are then surprised to find the laptop will not power up at some point. The second mistake is to use the AC power and battery supply without regard to the effect of partially discharging the battery.
So you come to power up your laptop and nothing happens, what do you do? Try removing the battery from the laptop and then power on with AC supply only and if it works then you know you have an issue with the battery. A simple purge of the battery will usually suffice to correct this problem. More on that later.
Continuously discharging the battery without allowing it to exhaust its charge results in the battery gaining a recharge "memory". Effectively it fails to take a full charge and this results in less power being stored so the ability to use the laptop by battery power alone reduces. This defeats the whole object of having a laptop that you can use anywhere free of connection to a mains supply. This shortening of battery life is also known as "battery fade".
Many laptop users complain about how their battery does not power their laptop for very long when they are relying solely on battery power. These two issues are the primary reasons why this occurs, so how can you avoid falling into these pitfalls and start caring for laptop batteries to get the best performance out of them?
Here are some tips for you but you will need to check whether you have a NiCad (Nickel Cadmium) or HiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) battery for your laptop and check the manufacturers instructions.
The first maintenance procedure is to allow the laptop to be powered only by the battery itself, so disconnect the AC power supply and allow the laptop to discharge until you get a "battery low" warning. Reconnect the AC power to the unit and leave it for 12 hours so the battery can regain its charge. Check the manufacturers instructions for the length of time that they recommend for a recharge, but typically 12 hours is sufficient to perform this adequately.
The second thing you can do is to purge the battery as we have mentioned before. Purging is where you allow the laptop to completely discharge the battery until the unit powers off completely. You do not connect the AC power supply until the unit has completely powered off and to ensure a full discharge you should disable the hibernation or any power supply sleep management function that the laptop has. Once the laptop has powered off, reconnect the AC power supply but do not switch the laptop on. Leave the laptop like this for 24 hours and repeat this process every month for NiCad batteries and every 3 months for NiMH.
These two tips will help you prolong battery life and utility, however you should carefully read the manufacturers instructions to ensure you treat your laptop in accordance with their recommendations. Laptop batteries are expensive to replace and there is also the frustration when sitting on a long flight of suddenly seeing your laptop die and work vanish due to the battery. Caring for your laptop batteries will enhance your laptop utility and your productivity when you are away from home or office.
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