Quote:
Originally Posted by JackAZ
After about two years, probably just shy of that, my Li-ion laptop battery holds only about a 20 minute charge. Had I not been using/charging it from an inverter it would most likely still be running at full tilt as if it were new.
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No, actually, that's not the cause for your poor battery performance now. It's because you're probably not "exercising" it.
Some history: I'm an IT manager who, during a previous job, managed about 25 laptops used for sales and tech deployments in a variety of conditions. I supplied each with APC inverters for their vehicles as part of their "mobile" package. I also taught and encouraged battery "exercise".
Here's what I found, from personal experience and from those following my recommendations:
1. Laptops that had no regular battery use that completely drained the battery every 30-45 days saw a significant decrease in battery performance after 1 year of daily operation.
2. Laptops that were intentionally run down on batteries once a month saw almost NO performance hits on their battery performance, even after 2 years of operation.
3. Inverters and alternate power supplies had no effect on 1 or 2.
4. Heat had a roughly 15-20% decrease in battery performance when running on batteries but almost no impact on battery life or performance during later cooler periods.
Here's what I did to get this performance:
1. Adjusted power management settings to warn me of battery failure at 3% rather than the default 10%.
2. Once a month (30-45 days or so), I'd take the laptop off the docking station or power supply and run it down to that warning.
3. At the next opportunity, I'd charge the battery back up. To get the greatest impact, this should be a FULL recharge cycle. Don't remove the power supply until the battery is completely charged. Yes, newer battery technologies have less "memory" but my personal experience has told me the greatest impact is a full cycle rather than partial.
I'd also do this within a few days of getting a new laptop. Let it charge up, run it to nothing, then recharge fully.
I have a laptop on my closet shelf that is 5 years old. When I bought it, I'd get roughly 2.5 hours off of it. Today, after a charge, I can still get 2+ hours from that same battery. I've never changed it. All I did was those steps above.