Laptop battery wear

[sj33]

Recently, Windows 7 has been informing me that my battery needed replacing. I paid no heed, but my battery life has been noticably lower. I've just installed BatteryBar, and it reckons I've got 64.1% wear!

I've only had this laptop just over a year. I think the warantee ex[ired about a month ago - sods law eh? Is there anything I can do, short of coffing up ?107 for a new battery?

[abigsmurf]

Get a battery on ebay from China at 1/3rd the price.

A year is pretty unusual for that much wear, typically a Lithium cell will last about 200 charge cycles before the battery becomes noticably worse. You can't do what you'd do with a car battery and send voltage spikes to the battery to boost it as that'd fry the circuitry in the battery itself.

One thing that's worth doing is a complete discharge, run the battery down to minimum (turn off the auto shut down at low levels in windows) then do a full charge.

[Psyduck]

I think your battery's life span will depend on how you use it. You're supposed to fully discharge and then charge it at least once a month, otherwise it'll suffer. Doesn't help you with this one but might in the future if you've not been doing this?

[smouty]

IBM (Lenovo) and Dell laptops that I have used have utilities to change the battery charging behaviour from always charging when plugged-in to battery saver which discharges the battery first.
This has increased the life IMHO.

[sj33]

Thanks, I think I'll try completely draining the battery. Doies anyone know how to disable the auto-shutdown in Windows 7? I tried going to power management, but I can't lower the critical battery level to lower than 6%, and can't set it to take no action at critical level.

Also, what is this Dell battery application you speak of? I have a Dell

[smouty]

In Vista it on the Power settings page under Dell battery meter.
I think you need the quickset tools installed.

[kernow]

I've always thought about my lappy battery but its always plugged into the mains, maybe 1% it isn't when I move it around. I have noticed the batteries on ebay are next to nothing though.

[sj33]

Looking on ebay, I can get a 6-cell battery for £35. Funnily enough, the 9-cell is cheaper at £25! Unfortunately the 9-cell is twice the weight and oversized, sticking out the back and propping up the laptop. This is undesired on a 13" laptop, so I'll do with the 6-cell methinks.

Here's what I was wondering. I go to Japan in a year, and will be there a year. I am paranoid about having battery issues at a later date, especially given Dell no longer make the m1330 and thus battery supplies might dry out. If I bought a battery now and kept hold of it for a year, using my existing one until then, would the new battery still work just as good in a years time?

[randombs]

Lithium-ion batteries lose their life whether you're using them or not, so they recommend you don't buy two batteries when you get your laptop and then keep one stored to use when the first starts deteriorating, instead you should buy the second battery later on down the line when you need it:

http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm

[sj33]

I feared as much. I might just buy one soon, then another in a year if required.

I'll have to find out how to keep it limited to 40% charge, like you were saying you managed.

[sj33]

I now have a new laptop battery from eBay, it seems to work fine. Does anyone have any advice (or a link to some) for taking care of the battery so that it doesn't happen again?

[Taka]

Lithium ion batteries last longer with regular topping up, basically rarely letting the battery run down completely (once a month is enough). They have a finite number of charge cyles typically 300 - 500, so if you regularly run it down to zero and then recharge, you're using up 1 charge cycle. If you're not gonna use the battery for a while, unplug it and leave it somewhere cool until you do need it. That should be enough without causing full blown paranoia over battery care!