Toshiba Battery

Lakshmi7

I've had my Toshiba laptop for about 15 months.

At first, my battery was lasting for about 2 hours. Now, it's saying that I've only got about 1 hour and 30 minutes charge. However, after about an hour, I get the warning message, and I have about a minute to plug it in to the mains or the laptop dies.

Is there anything I can do to prolong the life of the battery?

If not, could you suggest a good place for me to ge a replacement battery?

Thank you.

exup

sounds like the battery is on the way out - best thing to do is have a search around various sites - although I found a decent deal on amazon for a laptop battery I bought recently. (for toshiba)
I have seen suggestions not to run the laptop with the battery in and on the mains - this can also make the battery overheat and reduces its life - but its better to either run on battery and only plug in when charged fully, or take the battery out (when its charged) and run with only the mains cable in.
Although for some reason my laptop wont run on the mains on its own, so I use the old battery for that and keep the new one when I cant get to the mains supply

Running the laptop on a soft surface - even a flat one can cause heating problems, and although may not cause shut down through overheating - can still reduce the life of the battery - best to make sure the vents have good air circulation on a flat surface like a table (without a thick tablecloth)

chrisma232

My Nintendo Ds was the same the battery used to last for days but with use it's battery life has gotten shorter and shorter.Now it lasts about 2 hours.There are things that you can do to extend the life of a laptop battery.

. Dim your screen
. Cut down on programs running in the background
Do not leave a charged battery dormant for long periods of time
Set up and optimize your power options

Just google and find the cheapest deal going at that moment as they seem to be forever changing.Amazon and play are usually good places..Also use a cashback site to get some money back on your purchase.

Alexander43

exup wrote: »

sounds like the battery is on the way out - best thing to do is have a search around various sites - although I found a decent deal on amazon for a laptop battery I bought recently. (for toshiba)
I have seen suggestions not to run the laptop with the battery in and on the mains - this can also make the battery overheat and reduces its life - but its better to either run on battery and only plug in when charged fully, or take the battery out (when its charged) and run with only the mains cable in.
Although for some reason my laptop wont run on the mains on its own, so I use the old battery for that and keep the new one when I cant get to the mains supply

Running the laptop on a soft surface - even a flat one can cause heating problems, and although may not cause shut down through overheating - can still reduce the life of the battery - best to make sure the vents have good air circulation on a flat surface like a table (without a thick tablecloth)

I too have the same problem with battery.

will it work on main cable if we remove the battery out?

exup

Alexander43 wrote: »

I too have the same problem with battery.

will it work on main cable if we remove the battery out?

it should do - it wont hurt the laptop to try it anyway

Alexander43

ah thanks for the info. I think its better to use once its fully charged.

cit_k

Try running it completely flat till it shuts down, and then charge it up fully, a couple of times if possible.
It may make the usage guage more reliable if it knows how much charge is in it.
The battery may just be ageing naturally through time+use though.

Catalin_2

The worst enemy of lithium-ion batteries is heat. The second worst is extended time spent at or near full charge (anything over 50%, really). Laptops, unfortunately, conspire to combine the two: they get hot, which keeps the battery hot, or at least warm, and when used mostly plugged in, they also keep the battery fully charged. This reduces the capacity of the battery surprisingly quickly. On top of that, the battery controller usually underestimates the reduction: that's why it reports 1.5 hours, but the battery dies after only one hour. In my experience, it never re-learns the actual capacity of the battery, so deep-cycling it probably won't fix the gauge, despite what cit_k suggested. Deep discharge cycles are good for NiCd and NiMH batteries, and may help regain some of the lost capacity. However, they are moderately bad for lithium-ion -- so if you use your laptop until the battery runs out, then plug it in to charge, you're not doing it any favour either. Plus, once a lithium-ion battery has lost some of its capacity, there's nothing you can do to bring it back.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that no matter how you use the laptop, the life of the battery is going to be quite short. The main culprit is the high temperature, so anything you can do to avoid that helps. That's also why a netbook battery may degrade more slowly than one in a regular, power-hungry laptop: netbooks use much less power, so they heat up less.

It would seem that the best way to preserve the life of a laptop battery would be to charge it to 50%, take it out of the laptop, and keep it in a cool place, or at room temperature (not the refrigerator, though -- too cold, and condensation when you take it out can be dangerous). That brings me to the third worst enemy of lithium-ion batteries: extended time spent unused. It is a good idea to go through at least one battery worth of charge a month. This can be one deep discharge followed by recharging, or two times discharged from 100% to 50% and then charged back to 100%, or two times charged from 50% to 75%, then discharged to 25%, then recharged back to 50% (this is probably the best, as it avoids the full charge and the deep discharge), and so on. Very few people have the patience to take the laptop battery out of their laptop, then put it back every fortnight, and monitor the discharge and the charge cycles, so, in practice, I guess you have to get used to the idea that your laptop battery is going to die a slow death and there isn't much you can do about it.

One final word of caution: if discharged below a certain threshold, lithium-ion batteries can not be charged again, ever. A laptop battery has a controller (a little chip inside the battery case) that does not let the laptop discharge it anywhere near that threshold. It reports the battery "empty" well before it reaches the point of no return. However, batteries do self-discharge when left alone, and the rate varies from battery to battery (usually slow, but who knows). So don't leave a battery for too long without using it, and always charge an empty battery as soon as you can. Leave it empty for two weeks (or full for six months), and you could be left with an expensive (and ugly) paperweight.

Sorry for the bad news.

david_creative

what is the way to avoid heat?

do we need a cooling pad?