[kwlug-disc] OT: Laptop battery life

[B.S.]

Are you draining the battery all the way down before charging?

Are you leaving AC plugged in at all times unless otherwise unavoidable? I see contradictory opinions regarding such trickle charging.

NiMH is not supposed to have memory, but in practice appears to. So reconditioning is supposed to help - complete drain, complete charge, complete drain. Or something. There is/was even a utility in the repository to assist this. (Can't find it at the moment.)

Myself, I try to do anything I can to not use the battery. For most of my use cases to date, I only need to be on battery for at most 3 hours at any given point, e.g. Library. Otherwise, even at Tim's or in a meeting room, I'll hook up the AC - I even carry a 2 prong extension cord to facilitate that. And my working assumption is that laptops are AC powered only, the batteries being so expensive and in essence useless.

$60 for a battery is just silly. Unavoidable, but nevertheless. Never mind most laptops won't power up on AC without the battery - but at least it can be a completely dead battery.

Perhaps my good experience buying UPS batteries will be true for you here - http://batterywholesale.ca/ on Lawrence does batteries much cheaper than places like Canada Computers. Perhaps they can order something for you? He's responsive on e-mail.

>________________________________
> From: Khalid Baheyeldin <kb at 2bits.com>
>To: KWLUG discussion <kwlug-disc at kwlug.org> 
>Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2015 10:15 AM
>Subject: [kwlug-disc] OT: Laptop battery life
> 
>
>
>Since this laptop is an older model (BIOS says March 2009), I had to replace the battery on it quite a few times.
>
>What I do is go to Canada Computers web site, and check the laptop model and get the battery that matches, opting for the larger capacity one. The cost is reasonable at $60 for the 6600 mAH version (regular one is 4400 mAH).
>
>The problem is, while the initial ones lasted for 2.5 to 3 years, the newer ones do not last that long. Perhaps 1.5 years or so.
>
>So, the questions are: 
>- Did anyone experience such short battery life, specially in aftermarket batteries? 
>- Can the battery be rebuilt, rather than buying a new one with the old one not having a future in being properly recycled?
>
>Additional info:
>
>Here is: /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info 
>present:                 yes
>design capacity:         6600 mAh
>last full capacity:      663 mAh
>battery technology:      rechargeable
>design voltage:          10800 mV
>design capacity warning: 0 mAh
>design capacity low:     0 mAh
>cycle count:              0
>capacity granularity 1:  0 mAh
>capacity granularity 2:  663 mAh
>model number:            PA3534U-1BAS
>serial number:           0001
>battery type:            Li-ion
>OEM info:                
>
>And here is: /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state 
>present:                 yes
>capacity state:          ok
>charging state:          charging
>present rate:            448 mA
>remaining capacity:      637 mAh
>present voltage:         10800 mV