New laptop battery, any advice?

I got a new battery for my wife's iBook. It's Li-Ion. the battery she has now has over 450 cycles, and holds about 55% of the original capacity. So I cannot really complains. But, I remember reading somewhere (I think on this forum) that if you don't fully charge a Li cell, i.e. you stop at 4.1V instead of the Maximum 4.2V, the energy stored in the cell is a little less (80-90% or so) but you basically double the number of cycles you get form the cell.

Is this also true with laptop batteries? if I tell het to keep an eye on it and unplug it whenever it reaches 85-90% instead of 100% charge, will that help in the long term?

Thanks

Google will help for this. Short answer seems to be that heat is the main problem; removing the battery will protect it, but if your AC power hiccups you lose your work. Storage on the battery, they say let it go down to 60 percent or so before storing it. Lithium-ion batteries only last 3 years whether they're used or not, maybe that's increasing a bit with better tech, but whether they're used or not they slowly lose capacity. There are some news articles about new technology for laptops that will last longer, promises, promises ....

Your laptop may also need to recalibrate its battery settings to know when it's really charged, check the specifications/manual/help for that. Apple Macs use the term 'recalibrate'

Frustrating, the batteries aren't better, they should be.

Thanks, I did calibrate the battery several times before I decided to buy a new one. It's just that it has not 450 cycles. and it's almost two years old.

I think it did a good job, and all I can really change is to tell my wife to recharge before she hits the 5% warning, and maybe don't charge to 100%. In other words she should try to keep the battery between 15 and 90% instead of 5 to 100%. I guess I didn't ask the question clearly. Will this make a difference? thanks

Hello Viorel00,

Heat is the #1 enemy of laptop Li-Ion battery packs. If you can find a way to keep the battery pack cooler, it will help with cycle life.

Charging to 100% and using a full discharge every time, the battery pack is supposed to be good for around 500 cycles.

Now, you can increase your cycle life two ways. You can limit the full charge voltage, and the amount of time spent at full charge, and you can limit the discharge to something less than 100%.

I charge my laptop battery pack to whatever the charger puts in. I recharge when the pack drops below 50%. If I store the pack, I store it at around 40% charged. My laptop sits on top of a cooling device when I use it at home, and on the road I make sure to prop something under the back side to give a little more cooling area under it.

I am at 3 years on my pack. It is still going strong, but I am thinking that it may be time to invest in a back up pack... but then again, I may wait until next year...

Tom

SilverFox said:

My laptop sits on top of a cooling device when I use it at home, and on the road I make sure to prop something under the back side to give a little more cooling area under it.

Click to expand...

The intent, of course, is to allow air to circulate around the laptop, especially the underside and battery compartment.

Some will even position the laptop for more comfortable use.

They also reduce the risk of a runaway thermal reaction...

Here are but a few:

http://computers.search.ebay.com ... cooling-cooler

http://www.keynamics.com ... aviator-laptop-standl

http://www.laptopstuff.co.uk ... cool-feet-laptop-stand

http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com ... need-laptop-desk

http://lifehacker.com ... make-your-own-laptop-stand

Thanks guys!

Incidentally, one of the worst things you can do to your 'laptop' is to actually use it on your lap.

Body heat exacerbates the temperature problem, and clothes tend to block the cooling vents.

Seems like 'notebook' is a much more apt name these days...

Agreed. Incidentally, most makers call them Laptops, while Apple always called them NoteBook as far as I know. Even the name is iBook, Powerbook, Macbook, etc. not MacLap