Laptop battery using mistakes

June 14th, 2009 Tagged battery, laptop, mistakes, using

Laptop battery using mistakes

Lives Longer In BIOS? – This is one of the few troubleshooting diagnostic tests you can do at home to find out if your A1057 A1057 battery life problem is due to a hardware flaw or to the way the laptop is being operated. Enter the BIOS setup immediately after turning on the notebook on with a fully charged battery, usually by hitting the DEL key, the F1 or F2 key immediately after you power on. Some laptops display a text message telling you what key you need to hit to enter the BIOS setup, on others the message is suppressed by a BIOS setting, but you can always go online and Google the right key combination if it’s not in your manual. Once you bring up any BIOS screen, measure the time it takes the laptop battery to run down. If it doesn’t outlast the battery life under regular usage by a good margin, the short battery life is probably due to a faulty battery or a hardware failure that causes the laptop to continually suck power when it shouldn’t.

AC Adapter Noisy? For starters, this is one of those problems that tends to bother more women than men, because men lose their high frequency hearing at a much earlier age than women. Battery chargers typically include a transformer and some power IC’s, at least a bridge rectifier. There’s a lot of potential for humming and whistling with transformers, but they can go on operating that way for years without failing. If the battery charger gets very hot, then it’s time to check the manufacturer specs for temperature and see if it needs replacement, and check the U4873 D5318 battery temperature as well. In all cases, the acoustic behavior of your AC power adapter and charger may naturally vary with the quality of the power from the utility, and the feed voltage if you are traveling. Anytime you can avoid running a computer on poorly regulated or intermittent utility power you should do so, but at least with a laptop you’re better off than with a desktop.

OS Battery Management Active? Older notebooks were equipped with hardware only battery management schemes that controlled both charging and battery operation. All new laptops ship with ACPI (Advanced Configuration Power Interface) which is a marriage between BIOS routines that monitor board level charging and device activity, and the operating system. The operating system power management comes equipped with a number of default profiles that instruct the laptop if and how to nurse the U4873 D5318 battery. There’s usually a power user profile that just runs full out with no consideration of battery life, a number of special purpose profiles, such as running a DVD movie for a sole task, and a miserly setting that cuts performance to a minimum and puts devices like the hard drive to sleep when not in frequent use.

You can micro-manage these profiles to suit your needs, and you can always go into the settings and override them or change the profile at any time. The most useful trick to remember for running on G5266 HD438 KD186 battery is how to brighten or dim the LCD screen using the the function screen. Screen brightness is a serious power drain (you’re essentially powering a small fluorescent lightbulb) and in most indoor usages, strategic choice of where you sit can add time to your battery life. When troubleshooting battery life issues, you may want to run a power management profile that doesn’t come up to your expectations for performance for a few battery cycles just to help diagnose the problem.

DC Voltage Good? Check the voltage at the output of your AC adapter with a DC voltmeter, right on the barrel connector that gets plugged into the laptop. The rule of thumb for acceptable readings on power adapter output is usually a 5% variation either way of the faceplate voltage, and in terms of charging a G5266 HD438 KD186 battery, a high reading is better than a low reading. If you’ve purchased a lightweight battery charger for travel, don’t assume that it’s putting out the correct voltage just because there’s a connector that fit your notebook. Check your owners manual or the label on the original battery charger that came with the notebook.

LED For Charging Blink? While there’s no universal standard, a blinking LED on the battery charge indicator is probably not good news. It often indicates a battery that has been over-discharged, the voltage is so low that it’s confusing the charging circuitry into thinking the battery has a dead cell and would just overheat if a charge is pushed into it. The newer the laptop, the smarter the charging logic, and it won’t want to try putting a charge into a battery that may damage either the battery or the notebook itself. In some cases, you’ll be able to recharge an over depleted inspiron B130 battery if you wait until the notebook is shut down, install the battery, and then plug in the the battery charger, but I’d keep a close eye (and occasional finger) on it for overheating. There are also fuel gauges built into some newer batteries that simply disable the battery when it reaches it’s planned cycle life.

Does Battery Get Hot? Recently there have been a spate of high profile stories in the media about laptop batteries catching fire. This wasn’t caused by normal heating due to charging. The problem was in the manufacturing process of the individual cells, where apparently some contamination led to internal short circuits that could cause the battery to overheat even if it wasn’t in use. Powerbook G4 batteries normally heat up a little on charging, and they heat up even more when discharging under heavy demand. Battery packs usually include a temperature cut-off circuit, that will halt battery charging or discharging if it really overheats. In some cases, the battery will not be usable afterwards because the cut-off acts like a circuit breaker that can’t be easily reset.

It certainly doesn’t do your laptop battery any good to get very hot, even if it’s within the toleration of the protective circuitry, so if it’s overheating on discharge, consider running on AC power instead. Just remember you have to shut down before removing the Acer 3000 battery unless it’s specified as being hot-swapable:-) You can also try decreasing the performance settings to lower the power drain. If the battery is overheating on charging, you can try charging when the laptop is turned off since the laptop is generating heat as well. Also, pay attention to the ambient air temperature. All notebook computers depend on the ambient air for cooling, so unless you are running the computer on a special cooling pad, think twice about using it on those 110 degree days!

Latch Locks Tight? It’s impossible to see what’s going on with the connector contact inside the battery compartment once the battery is installed, so the only indicator you have to proper installation (aside from normal operation) is the condition of the latch. If the latching mechanism doesn’t show a positive close by clicking back to the relaxed position, try reinstalling the battery. Some laptops have a manual battery lock that is operating separately from the latches, and which will not lock unless the battery is installed properly. If the latches refuse to click closed on their own, remove the battery again, visually inspect for any bulging or distortions in the package, and check the connector for damage.

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