Laptop battries: Any way to rejuvinate?

[C James]

I have a bad battery on my laptop; when charging, the transformer brick now gets very hot, and also the battery might show 100% charge, but I get either (it varies) a sudden shutdown or a low-power warning by the time its down to 85% charged (usually about ten miniutes after booting).

 

The battery and laptop are about seven years old. Any way to cycle the battery and get some more life out of it? I hate to buy a new one for such an old clunker; laptop batteries can be expensive.

 

Thanks!

[Masked Monkey]

I have a bad battery on my laptop; when charging, the transformer brick now gets very hot, and also the battery might show 100% charge, but I get either (it varies) a sudden shutdown or a low-power warning by the time its down to 85% charged (usually about ten miniutes after booting).

 

The battery and laptop are about seven years old. Any way to cycle the battery and get some more life out of it? I hate to buy a new one for such an old clunker; laptop batteries can be expensive.

 

Thanks!

 

7 years ...

 

the short answer is NO, buy a new one

 

Rechargable batteries have a limited lifetime, that is just the way it is. I am shocked that you got 7 years out of it. Also not, that the time frame is almost totally independent of your use. Used or unused, the batteries just go bad.

 

For NiCd batteries you could do a deep cell discharge because they would build up "memory". The analogy my dad used to use was that of a bucket you used to carry cement. You could fill the bucket full of cement from the mixer and carry it to the work site, but if you only dumped half of it out before refilling, eventually, the cement in the bottom of the bucket would harden and you would only have half a bucket.

 

Ni-metal-hydride batteries do not work that way. The electrochemical storage and discharge is not like a lead acid, or NiCd.

 

You can try to play games with it, put on a rapid cycling ac voltage, or some other such thing, but odds are you will catch the battery on fire.

 

The other point is that the battery is probably made up of a bunch of little batteries connected in a combination of series and parallel. I believe Ni-metal-hydride puts out 1.4 volts, so to get the standard 12 that your laptop wants, you have to do more. The fact that your transformer is getting hot tells me that the battery is drawing more power than it should when charged. That means that one of the "lines" of little batteries inside the big battery is shorted out and drawing way too much power ... read that as may melt.

 

to repeat the short answer

 

"no" buy a new one

 

besides, it is 49 in dog years (god knows how many in goat years) and deserves to go to proper disposal to be reincarnated as coating on some microchip.

 

:king: Dr. Mr. Snow "Snoopy" Dog

[TalonRider]

Have you thought about having the power supply checked to see if it's working? If both are seven years old, then they have probably outlived their usefullness and both should be changed.

 

Have you thought about buying a new laptop? Like most everything else, they've come down in price over the years. You could then donate your old one. Most place will refurbish them before it's given to someone.

 

Just something to think about.

 

Jan

[rknapp]

Buy a new battery, or buy a new laptop. If the machine you have now still performs its function without fail (unlikely with today's high-powered programs), then you can probably get away with buying a new battery. The only problem you might run into is finding a brand new battery for a seven year old laptop computer.

 

That said, you're lucky got out of it what you did. My MP3 player's old rechargable lithium-ion battery lasted four years, and the guy at Radio Snatch was surprised that it lasted that long. I had blow $60 on a new one straight out of Creative.

 

Again, I would recommend replacing the computer itself. Decent Dell or IBM laptops can be had for relatively cheap, especially around back-to-school time and the holidays.

[C James]

7 years ...

 

the short answer is NO, buy a new one

 

Rechargable batteries have a limited lifetime, that is just the way it is. I am shocked that you got 7 years out of it. Also not, that the time frame is almost totally independent of your use. Used or unused, the batteries just go bad.

 

For NiCd batteries you could do a deep cell discharge because they would build up "memory". The analogy my dad used to use was that of a bucket you used to carry cement. You could fill the bucket full of cement from the mixer and carry it to the work site, but if you only dumped half of it out before refilling, eventually, the cement in the bottom of the bucket would harden and you would only have half a bucket.

 

Ni-metal-hydride batteries do not work that way. The electrochemical storage and discharge is not like a lead acid, or NiCd.

 

You can try to play games with it, put on a rapid cycling ac voltage, or some other such thing, but odds are you will catch the battery on fire.

 

The other point is that the battery is probably made up of a bunch of little batteries connected in a combination of series and parallel. I believe Ni-metal-hydride puts out 1.4 volts, so to get the standard 12 that your laptop wants, you have to do more. The fact that your transformer is getting hot tells me that the battery is drawing more power than it should when charged. That means that one of the "lines" of little batteries inside the big battery is shorted out and drawing way too much power ... read that as may melt.

 

to repeat the short answer

 

"no" buy a new one

 

besides, it is 49 in dog years (god knows how many in goat years) and deserves to go to proper disposal to be reincarnated as coating on some microchip.

 

:king: Dr. Mr. Snow "Snoopy" Dog

 

This is Lithium-ion, supposedly non-memory, so I thin you're right; it must have a short somewhere. It's had very little use (I only use the laptop while traveling) but it's old... I got it in either early 2001 or late 2000.

 

Thanks!!

 

Have you thought about having the power supply checked to see if it's working? If both are seven years old, then they have probably outlived their usefullness and both should be changed.

 

Have you thought about buying a new laptop? Like most everything else, they've come down in price over the years. You could then donate your old one. Most place will refurbish them before it's given to someone.

 

Just something to think about.

 

Jan

I checked the power supply with a multi-meter, and it seems fine.

 

I am thinking of a new laptop; this one has other problems (like intermitant HD read problems and crashes)

 

Buy a new battery, or buy a new laptop. If the machine you have now still performs its function without fail (unlikely with today's high-powered programs), then you can probably get away with buying a new battery. The only problem you might run into is finding a brand new battery for a seven year old laptop computer.

 

That said, you're lucky got out of it what you did. My MP3 player's old rechargable lithium-ion battery lasted four years, and the guy at Radio Snatch was surprised that it lasted that long. I had blow $60 on a new one straight out of Creative.

 

Again, I would recommend replacing the computer itself. Decent Dell or IBM laptops can be had for relatively cheap, especially around back-to-school time and the holidays.

 

I found the battery online, $172!! Ouch!! This laptop isn't worth it.

 

New software isn't the problem; I use the laptop for traveling mainly, so all I need is microsoft office, and it has an older version of that on it. However, even with very little software, it is incredibly slow. It is also very heavy by modern standards. I'll bite the bullit and get a new one after Xmas... then I can get onboard wireless, etc, too.

 

Thanks everyone!

[Masked Monkey]

I checked the power supply with a multi-meter, and it seems fine.

unfortunately, checking it with a multimeter without a correct load isn't gonna tell you if it is bad.

[JamesSavik]

I concur with the Dawg. A rechargeable battery that been through hundreds of charge/discharge cycles in 6 years is most probably shot.

 

$172 does seem a little steep for a battery- shop around some more.

 

We have a company in town that reconditions laptop batteries for $60- a great deal for systems administrators who have a whole fleet of laptops to take care of.

 

Another option- 3rd party batteries. Dura-cell makes a great one- if they make one compatible with your laptop.

 

If you should choose to get a new laptop, take a good look at HP laptops. I just put a client in one with speech recognition software & MS Office for $640+ software.

[C James]

unfortunately, checking it with a multimeter without a correct load isn't gonna tell you if it is bad.

 

OOps, thanks! I managed to forget that.

 

I concur with the Dawg. A rechargeable battery that been through hundreds of charge/discharge cycles in 6 years is most probably shot.

 

$172 does seem a little steep for a battery- shop around some more.

 

We have a company in town that reconditions laptop batteries for $60- a great deal for systems administrators who have a whole fleet of laptops to take care of.

 

Another option- 3rd party batteries. Dura-cell makes a great one- if they make one compatible with your laptop.

 

If you should choose to get a new laptop, take a good look at HP laptops. I just put a client in one with speech recognition software & MS Office for $640+ software.

 

Thanks! I checked Duracell and some others, and no luck for this my old Ashton Digital (not this model, anyway).

 

I've definitly decided to get a new laptop of some sort. The present one has a small screen, but is both thick and heavy, around 15 pounds and close to three inches thick. I'd love something thinner and lighter, especially as I have to carry it in my flight bag when traveling (Some foreign airports, such as Gatwick in the UK, limit passengers, including those just changing planes, to ONE carry-on item, and they count things like camera cases, women's purses, and of course laptop cases).

 

I don't need high performance; All I need it to do is web browse, e-mail and also run Word, and I don't care if its a little slow. I'd prefer it if it was windows XP or 2000, or I could install one of the above, to make it campatable with my home systems (which runs Win2k for my main box, and XP on a secondary, and networking those two has caused headaches enough). I know there are driver availablity problems for newer units regarding Win2k, so I'd settle for XP. Anything but Vista (I've seen way too much trouble from that thing, including having to help fix my cousin's Vista box last week, as it was having yet another slew of compatibility issues, and he still couldn't run some of his older software and hardware even after much tweaking and hours on the phone to customer support numbers . He gave up, saved his data, formatted the drive, installed XP, and now things are working again.) I'll have a look at HP, especially if I can buy one without software.

 

Thanks!!

[rknapp]

99% you can't buy it without software. You can call and ask, but I doubt it. So long as you aren't charged for the software, just get it, format it, and install whatever OS you like. I understand completely why you would want Win2k or XP. I prefer Win2k, but unfortunately it seems as though compatibility for new software is slowing going out the window... starting with games. But those who are tech savvy tend to prefer Win2k still! After all these years! The most stable OS and the lightest OS Microsoft has built to date!

[C James]

99% you can't buy it without software. You can call and ask, but I doubt it. So long as you aren't charged for the software, just get it, format it, and install whatever OS you like. I understand completely why you would want Win2k or XP. I prefer Win2k, but unfortunately it seems as though compatibility for new software is slowing going out the window... starting with games. But those who are tech savvy tend to prefer Win2k still! After all these years! The most stable OS and the lightest OS Microsoft has built to date!

 

I learned the hard way once that formatting the drive and using an older OS might not be a good idea; I did that with a desktop and found I couldn't get win2k drivers for some of the newer hardware it had.

 

I use win2k on my main system. I have XP disks, but I don't much like it compared to 2k; the "look and feel" is differend, and its sure different in system overhead from what I can see.

 

I'm not a gamer (of the few games I have, the newest is Microsoft's Age of Empires, circa 1998.) so gaming is not a concern in my case. What is a concern is file processing and throughput, and I find 2k blows XP away in that regard. I have a good MB and CPU, plus 4 gigs of RAM, and I find it runs my five physical hard drives far better than the XP I have on the same box (I have multiple boot).

 

For a laptop, I'd have to check and see if it had drivers for 2k (or worst case, XP) becuase I refuse to use Vista. Vista is buggy, and it's also full of DRM garbage. For those who like Vista, fine, you're welcome to it, but I sure don't want to have anything to do with Vista.

 

About the only thing I like about XP over 2k is the ability to use the new wide-screen monitors. I currently use a 16 inch CRT monitor, and once that fails I'll be looking at the flatscreens (I have yet to see one that is as good at color and tone as CRT, but I can't find large CRT's at decent prices anymore). In that case, if I can't find a software fix to run a widescreen on 2k, I might change to XP, but I'll so so only as a last resort. For one thing, I've made dozens of hacks and tweeks to my 2k, and I like it like it is.

[rknapp]

OS has nothing to do with monitor style... GPU does. I use a video card with a GeForce FX 7600 GT SLI chipset, and I can run wide-screen resolutions just fine on my 19" widescreen LCD monitor.

[C James]

OS has nothing to do with monitor style... GPU does. I use a video card with a GeForce FX 7600 GT SLI chipset, and I can run wide-screen resolutions just fine on my 19" widescreen LCD monitor.

 

Thanks!!! That means all I need is a new graphics card if I get the new monitor!

 

Edit to add: Just looked, and my card supports widescreen formats like 1280 X 768 and 1600 x 900. I don't even need a new card.

Thanks! I don't know where I got the idea that you needed XP or later to do widescreen.

[rknapp]

Lol, my current resolution is 1440x900, so it's only dictated by your video card and your monitor... obviously a normal aspect ratio monitor won't support widescreen. Running widescreen only gets tough for me to do when I'm in high-end games, in which case increasing the resolution beyond 800x600 slows it down a lot... but that should be fixed when/if I go to dual-core, dual channel DDR2, and I get another 7600 GT to use SLI