Laptop Battery

James240

I bought my laptop from PC World last year (yes i know :rolleyes: ) and basically the battery life has slowly gotten worse its gone from 1 1/2 hours to basically 1hr 3min its a Packard Bell laptop with AMD sempron processor with 256MB of Ram and 30GB hard drive....

what the question is do u think i can take the battery back to PC world to exchange it?

DilbertJones

Batteries are i'm afraid a consumable part and are only covered by a 90 day warranty, the battery life can be affected by the way you use it, i.e leave it on charge all the time the life will be reduced, this is not a manufacturing defect.

James240

robodan wrote:

Batteries are i'm afraid a consumable part and are only covered by a 90 day warranty, the battery life can be affected by the way you use it, i.e leave it on charge all the time the life will be reduced, this is not a manufacturing defect.

cheers robodan, i leave it on charge when im not using it i.e. when im at work its generally attached to the mains when im using it as well cos i use it for more than the usual hour it has left on battery life. Didnt know that this would affect the actually battery life though.....

kingarhu

I have been told that re-installing Windows can get the battery to behave again. I now have to run my laptop always from the mains, and am tempted to try the re-install theory, but wonder if anyone knows if it actually works - I remain sceptical at the moment.

iwanttosave_2

Its not only that but also the more stuff you on the laptop (programs and aplications and what not) the battery life will go down becasue it is having to work harder to sustain it all

spurs1234

No Reinstalling windows will not help, the running of programs etc will decrese the battery but not to a noticeable state.

you can buy new batterys at https://www.partsmaster.co.uk

another division of Dixons Group or ebay are sometime good for batterys

DilbertJones

re-istalling windows will not enhance battery life, it has a kind of charging memory inside if you like, so it remembers how much it took to charge to full, this gets confused if you regularly charge from nearly full.

Try running the battery right down to flat then chare to 100% & repeat a few times to see if you increase the capacity

wobbley

robodan wrote:

Try running the battery right down to flat then chare to 100% & repeat a few times to see if you increase the capacity

This is the best way to increase the life of your battery. It's called "Duty Cycling" Turn off any power options in control panel that turn the laptop off, or put it in standby when at say 5% or 3% of charge. Let it run right down. Switch off any backgroung programs and dont work on it. Let the battery drain as slowly as possible. Then put it on charge and keep an eye on it. As soon as it reaches 100% take it off charge and let it drain again as slowly as possible. Do this three or four times and you should notice some improvement in battery life. You'll always get the best out of a battery if you do this on a new one when you first get it.
Leaving the laptop on charge for extended periods really does hammer the battery condition so try not to do it. Despite what the manufacturers say about "no memory effect" Lithium Ion, and NiMh batteries do suffer to some degree. I tend to think of a battery a bit like having a dog (!) - It needs training in the first place and regular exercise or it will gat lazy (A bit like a husband too if you think about it !).
Even with regular conditioning though, as a previous poster pointed out - They are a 'consumable' item and will only last a few years at best. I do tend to take this into account when buying a laptop. Unfortunately Dell seem to be the best in this area. Their batteries are usually available from third party suppliers for peanuts and availability is great. If you get a Sony or a Toshiba always bear in mind that if you use it on battery a lot you will probably have to spend the best part of a couple of hundred quid a few years down the line. The real 'pits' were the early Advent PCW/Dixons/Curries brand. Their laptop batteries were pants and you could not get replacements at all. So it was mains or nothing.

marbar2k

i mainly use my laptop off the mains when @ home or in the office. do you think it would be advisable to remove the battery?

James240

cheers peeps will have a look at the options u have given me, just put lappy on tonight and the battery is at 100% fully charge and it says its giving me 41 min think i will try the charge and discharge route and then, if needs be see how much a new battery is.....

James240

spurs1234 wrote:

No Reinstalling windows will not help, the running of programs etc will decrese the battery but not to a noticeable state.

you can buy new batterys at www.partsmaster.co.uk

another division of Dixons Group or ebay are sometime good for batterys

Blimey just had a look at the cost of a new battery, :eek: didnt know they cost so much :eek: £77 :eek: think i wil hope the charge and discharge route works....