[ltp] Re: Thinkpad battery exhausted in less than a year?

[Hamie]

Brian Beattie wrote:

>On Mon, 2004-11-15 at 13:53, Martin Gramatke wrote:
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>>Brian Beattie wrote:
>>
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>>>it is best to be plugged in when ever power os available.
>>>      
>>>
>>Hello Brian,
>>
>>I will try that, thanks.
>>
>>Meanwhile I had a phone call with IBM. They adviced me to remove the battery
>>when the notebook is plugged in and in use. I should charge the battery
>>only when the notebook is off. This is quite impractical. They also told me
>>to do a total discharge every now and then.
>>I can not believe that this is the right way, because I have never heard
>>from other notebook users that they mount/dismount their battery all the
>>time. The battery is also important to give the notebook a better stand.
>>    
>>
>
>hmmmmmm, I wonder if that is just the local "tech" making things up, or
>if that advice comes from engineering, I suspect that is just the local
>"tech guy" making stuf up based on old information.  There is no count
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>

Actually the battery DOES count cycles... I know Linux ACPI doesn't show 
it, but if you boot under Windoze, you do see the cycle count. They 
reckon about 300 cycles for Li-Ion batteries. And also about 3 years 
from new to nearly dead. (Li-Ion are pretty consistent).

As far as mini-cycles go, the battery itself won't charge until the 
change in the battery goes below about 95%.

As far as personal experience goes, I leave mine in all the time... And 
use suspend to RAM a lot. (Every day on my R50, 50:50 with hibernation 
on my old a20p). My last battery lastes 3.5 years. The laptop itself 
dies (Cracked case). The battery still had about 50% of design capacity 
at full change.

H

>of cycles.  The battery lifetime depends on too many variables, so there
>is no specific number of cycles that the battery is good for, I have an
>A30 that I bought used about a year and a half ago and it was about a
>year old then.  I keep it plugged in about 23 hours a day and have run
>th ebattery all the way less than 10 times half way down about the same
>and on battery for lesseramounts of times about 20 times, and the
>battery life seems about as good as when I got it, about 2.5 hours in
>full use.
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