Battery status

[marnix_moed]

On my Acer lapto, vista battery status shows it is 100% charged, but only 30
minutes working time remains.
The working mode has been set to 'balanced', but even changing it to 'power
save' it only gains a couple of minutes.

I have my laptop for almost a year. Is it normal that the battery
practically used up within a year? Or is perhaps something else wrong here?
In the beginning it could almost last 3 hours. But with only 30 minutes you
can't get any work done.

 

[+Bob+]

On my Acer lapto, vista battery status shows it is 100% charged, but only 30
minutes working time remains.
The working mode has been set to 'balanced', but even changing it to 'power
save' it only gains a couple of minutes.

I have my laptop for almost a year. Is it normal that the battery
practically used up within a year? Or is perhaps something else wrong here?
In the beginning it could almost last 3 hours. But with only 30 minutes you
can't get any work done.

Not unusual. There are some techniques you can use to prolong battery
life, like taking it out half charged and only charging it when you
plan to use it. However, for most of us, that's beyond inconvenient.
Do some googling for more info on battery life.

Look to Ebay. Also, see if there is a higher capacity battery
available. Some models had options.

 

[M Skabialka]

Sometimes draining the battery until it is completely dead, then recharging
it helps. Some batteries have a "memory" of what the high charge is, but
actaully is an incorrect reading. Killing it resets this memory. To run it
down quickly try searching for all files containing the letter a - it will
search frantically but won't hurt anything if it dies suddenly. You may
have to temporarily change your settings to not do anything if it reaches a
critical battery level, like hibernate or shut down so that it will
completely drain the battery.

 

[Charles W Davis]

I thought that theory went out in the early '90s with the introduction of
"improved" ni-cad batteries. It certainly does not apply to Lithium-Ion
batteries in use today.

 

[+Bob+]

I thought that theory went out in the early '90s with the introduction of
"improved" ni-cad batteries. It certainly does not apply to Lithium-Ion
batteries in use today.

It did go out and no longer applies. LI batteries don't suffer from
"memory effect" in that way.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

It did go out and no longer applies. LI batteries don't suffer from
"memory effect" in that way.

The laptop may simply be misreporting what it sees.

Many laptops' manuals these days instruct you to reset the laptop's battery
management software by letting the battery run down completely (as much as
possible) and then recharging.