Beginners Battery Query

Evening all,

I've been given an Inspiron 1525 for crimbo and the person who has given me the laptop has charged it initially for about 2 hours. As far as I was aware, the battery should be charged for around 16 hours initially and as a result, our brand new battery lasts just under 2 hours.

Is there a way to delete the battery memory or something so that I can start the battery again and charge it correctly ??

Any help greatly received

Merry Christmas

 

It does not matter how long it is charged. You can use it on ac power for months then take it off of the cord to go on battery. The battery is likely only a 6 cell which isnt much for battery life. If you lower your brightness you can achieve better battery life. It doesnt sound like there is anything wrong with the battery honestly. My studio 15 gets only about 2 hours too. Its rather sad after coming from a vostro 1500 with the 9 cell and getting 5+ hours, or my dell 1505 with 9 cell getting 4+, or my latitude x300 with 9 cell getting over 6 hrs.

Its just the way the laptop is. They might make a larger capacity battery for that laptop, im not sure. I know they make it for all of the other laptops though. Only downside is they stick out of the back or bottom.

 

Agreed. Lithium ion batteries don't have a memory. They have a lifespan. They start to degrade from the day they are manufactured. It doesn't really matter how to charge them or use them during their lifetime--it isn't going to affect their performance. Age is really the only determining factor. That doesn't mean that a brand new battery of the same size is going to last you six hours, though. Brand new six cell battery on a 1525 would probably last about 3 hours or so.

 

That sounds about right for that notebook and battery. You can use a program such as Notebook Hardware Control to determine the wear level on the battery. Besides life of the battery, if it has a lot of charge cycles it will begin to wear down.

 

So is it better to keep the charger plugged in or remove it after 100% charge?

 

Just keep it in. Once it hits 100% it isn't going to continue to charge. By charge cycles I mean discharge then recharge. If you discharge it to 50% and charge to 100% and do that again it would be 1 cycle; it's a cumulative affect.

 

If you are sitting at a desk, why would you constantly plug it in and un plug it just to cycle the battery and ware it out faster? Keep it plugged in when you can...i dont get the huge concerns over how to use a laptop...

 

I was just wondering because on this forum I saw a post by someone saying that keeping it plugged in kills the battery faster.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=1696317&postcount=3

 

That post actually discusses whether to keep the battery plugged in when it is on AC power anyway. Some notebooks will not work with just AC power if no battery is plugged in but I haven't seen one for a few years. Back then, at least, the battery worked as some kind of buffer between the AC and the laptop which was quite useful.

As for charging and discharging vs leaving it always plugged in, I have learned from experience that the battery lasts much longer if you charge and discharge it rather than leaving it plugged in 100% of the time. I have used 3 laptops now where I left it plugged in 100% of the time because I pretty much used them as a desktop. I didn't notice it while it was plugged in all the time, of course, but as soon as I disconnected it from the mains and tried to use it on a train it ran down in a matter of minutes. This happened on a Toshiba Tecra S1, some Twinhead that I don't know the model of and a Toshiba Satellite Pro. The Satellite Pro, which is quite a power hungry laptop in the first place, was fine for the first year when I turned it on and off at the mains when I was using it but then I got lazy and left it plugged in for 6 months. After that it has about 6 - 8 minutes of battery life.

Since the 7 hour battery life is the best thing about my Vostro 1000 (9 cell), I really don't want to upset that so I don't leave it plugged in. This may vary depending on the type of battery used, whether impedance is used to measure a battery's capacity, etc but I'm not taking any chances because I have already ruined several batteries by leaving the notebooks plugged in. I prefer having to turn it on and off at the mains every few hours rather than getting on a 3 hour train journey and finding that my newly charged laptop only has 20 minutes of battery life left.

 

Many thanks all, a few fears allayed.

Cheers again

 

It's safe to keep an old battery inside the notebook if I connect the system always to the AC to avoid purchaising a new one ?

 

uhh... because nearly every other time someone posts a thread asking the same question there's never a definitive answer and completely contradictory advice? kinda like this one.

so who's right, ghell/laptop23 or everyone else?