Notebook Battery Maintenance

Neglecting the care and maintenance of your laptop battery will seriously impair the ability to use the laptop when you need it away from an AC power supply. Investing in a little time and effort will repay you many times over by prolonging battery life and laptop use while mobile. Users usually make two mistakes with laptop battery care. The first is that they use the laptop continuously while connected to the AC supply with the batteries inserted in the laptop, only to be surprised to find the laptop will not power up at some point. The second common mistake is partially discharging the batteries.

What do you do when you try to switch on your laptop and all you get is dead silence? First step: remove the battery and then connect to the AC power supply alone. If the laptop powers up you know you have a problem with the laptop battery. A process known as purging is often enough to resolve the battery issue and we'll show you what to do later on. Failing to discharge your laptop battery completely will affect your battery life when you come to use the laptop on battery power only, typically when you are mobile. The issue is that the less you discharge the stored power in the battery when you are using it, the less it will take a recharge. This phenomenon is known as "memory" and results in battery "fade", that is where the battery has learned by partial displacement of it's charge that it needs only a lower charge and hence it's use becomes restricted.

Many laptop owners have experienced battery fade when they eventually come to use their computers on battery power alone. You can deal with this phenomenon quite simply but first you need to establish what type of laptop battery you have in your machine and take the time to review the care instructions issued with the laptop. There are two very simple procedures for resolving battery life issues. How often you perform these maintenance exercises will depend upon whether you have NiCad (Nickel Cadmium) batteries or NiMH (Nickel Metal Hydride) in the laptop. Check the battery itself and the manufacturers paperwork that came with your laptop.

The first tip is to ensure that you completely discharge your laptop battery. You do this by powering the laptop up using battery power alone and with the AC power disconnected. Allow the laptop to run the battery down completely until you get the battery low warning. Reconnect the AC power and allow the battery to be recharged from this state, for the period the manufacturer advises for recharge (as long as 12 hours). Purging is where you disconnect the AC completely and disable the "sleep" feature of the laptop (or hibernation) and allow the battery to be discharged completely. Once the laptop has completely powered down, and you will know this as the display will die, plug the laptop into the AC but do not power up. Leave the laptop like this for up to 24 hours depending upon the manufacturers instructions. You should perform this for NiCad batteries once a month and for NiMH batteries every three months.

These two tips will help you prolong battery life and utility, however you should carefully read the manufacturers instructions to ensure you treat your laptop in accordance with their recommendations. Laptop batteries are expensive to replace and there is also the frustration when sitting on a long flight of suddenly seeing your laptop die and work vanish due to the battery. Caring for your laptop batteries will enhance your laptop utility and your productivity when you are away from home or office.