Can laptop batteries be repaired

Spank

m5rcc wrote: »

Don't use Sony or Apple: Why pay a premium for branding?

?

On the 1 hand your telling people only to buy genuine batteries & now your saying not to buy them, make up your mind.

m5rcc

Spank wrote: »

?

On the 1 hand your telling people only to buy genuine batteries & now your saying not to buy them, make up your mind.

Where I do state not to buy genuine? I stated I don't buy Sony or Apple products.

Notmyrealname

m5rcc wrote: »

Are you telling me that a cheap Chinese replacement is as good as genuine one?

Yes and no. I think you'll find the genuine manufacturers batteries are probably made in China anyway.

Notmyrealname

m5rcc wrote: »

Don't use Sony or Apple: Why pay a premium for branding?

Because my Macbook Pro uses a Lithium Polymer battery that will still have 80% capacity after 1000 cycles. Because a Thinkpad T series has a very strong alloy cage to protect the screen and mainboard and because in both cases after 4 years the second hand value will still be more than the retail price of the brand new laptop you bought from Tesco which had died 2 years earlier.

patman99

The short answer is 'yes', you can open a battery and replace the cells with more powerful ones.

The long answer is that you will need to be able to open a sealed unit to gain access to the cells.
The cells you buy-in need to be individually charged to full capacity in order to build a balanced battery and avoid the battery reporting full when the cell with the highest charge at point of supply reaches its maximum capacity.
Then there is the small chance that the battery may have a smart chip designed to deliberately lower the 'fully-charged' point in order to make you buy a new battery. This would need resetting (which would negate the need to replace the cells in the first place) using a chip-clip.

Mik77

patman99 wrote: »

The short answer is 'yes', you can open a battery and replace the cells with more powerful ones.

The long answer is that you will need to be able to open a sealed unit to gain access to the cells.
The cells you buy-in need to be individually charged to full capacity in order to build a balanced battery and avoid the battery reporting full when the cell with the highest charge at point of supply reaches its maximum capacity.
Then there is the small chance that the battery may have a smart chip designed to deliberately lower the 'fully-charged' point in order to make you buy a new battery. This would need resetting (which would negate the need to replace the cells in the first place) using a chip-clip.

Thanks, I'll source a cheaper one.

It's had next to no charge for over a year so it's not essential, just a pain at times that the laptop is not portable as it should be.

I'll disregard the handbag argument that was going on before your response.

robmar0se

Re handbags, quite amusing though!

Just in case: I often buy batteries on ebay. I look for 3 things (i) good track record over a reasonable time. (ii) read feedback to see how they deal with problems. (iii) never less than an explicit 12 month warranty.

Hope it helps.

PS obviously only for yr explicit model: the warranty then covers you.........

WelshPaul

My new Sony Vaio will only work with a genuine battery or so it states in the manual.

fwor

WelshPaul wrote: »

My new Sony Vaio will only work with a genuine battery or so it states in the manual.

For me that's a good reason not to buy a new Sony Vaio. It's one area where the Commission should rule on anti-competitive behaviour, and stop it being done.

centretap

m5rcc wrote: »

Don't use Sony or Apple: Why pay a premium for branding?

But the Sony batteries causing problems were not only in Sony products. Sony are a major supplier of laptop batteries to other manufacturers.