Dell 1537-How do I find the number of battery cycles?

How do I find the number of cycles that my battery has gone through?

What would you suggest me to do to improve its live and capacity?

 

If you discharge the battery to around 50%, and stick it in your fridge, you might buy a couple more months out of it, but in the end it's a futile gesture anyway. Lithium ion batteries will lose their capacity over time, no matter what any of us do to prevent it. The best you can do is use yours while it lasts, and when it eventually dies, buy a cheap replacement from eBay, unless you really want to pay Dell's exorbitant fees for an official replacement.

 

Um, it's NOT futile. At 40-50% charge and 4 degrees Celsius (temperature in the fridge), lithium ion batteries lose 2% of their charge a year. How is that futile? Mathematically, after 5 years it will still hold 90% of its charge (0.98^5 = 0.904).

In comparison, leaving your battery plugged in (where it can experience temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius or more), lithium batteries may lose up to 35% of their capacity a year. After 5 years, it will retain 12% of its charge (0.65^5=0.116).

So, no, we're not talking about a couple months here.

 

I asked something else:
How do i find how many times the battery has been charged?
My laptop is in service right now, but I want to make sure I get the same battery and that they don't swap it.
Call me paranoic, but in this country mechanics steal/swap parts from your car at the official service of the manufacturer. Imagine that.
Also, I don't know what's taking so long to change the optical unit(almost 2 weeks).

 

The battery must be having some kind of serial number, right? U can note it down before giving the product for service..

 

In order to get the charges you calculated, you would have use your laptop in a refrigerator. Once you put the battery back in your laptop you are going back to 40 o C. Your calculations assume the battery temperatures never rise above 4 o C.

 

You miss my point. My calculations are extreme, yes. But it's to highlight the fact that it is still better (for the battery) to take out your battery and store it somewhere cool, as opposed to leaving it plugged into your computer all day long.

I'm demonstrating that it is not futile to take better care of your laptop, theoretically.

 

Well I suppose I might start trying that.