Battery ruined, anyway to fix it?

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DJrulz4ever

New Member
Wasn't sure where to post this, so I just chucked it here.

My brother frequently uses the laptop I bought. Although, his feeble mind can't grasp the concept that you do not leave it on charge. He, quite a few times, left on charge over night.
When I first purchased my laptop, the battery lasted a minimum of a hour and a half. Now, 100% battery life lasts 15 minutes... Which, does not make me a happy bunny.

Is there anyway, which does not result in me selling my house, I can fix this problem so it is back to a nice chunkier number?
 
With the type of batteries used in laptops as well as cell phones(nicad there) and other types of rechargables you have to let the battery run down before giving it a full charge. otherwise the charger assumes the battery is at full capacity when you only have half life. In other words the charger has a memory in a sense. Try unplugging the charger for a few minutes, taking the battery out of the laptop, press the power switch on and then off without the battery in, and then replace the battery.

The idea is to reset the battery level detection in both charger and laptop. By switching the laptop on and off hopefully that will drain some life out of the caps on the laptops like you would recycle a power supply. Hopefully the battery wasn't overcharged too much needing replacement.
 
On most any laptop made since about '95, charging it full and leaving it is just fine. Charging it as much as possible as also fine. Most batteries from this time on are Li-ion and work better if you charge them BEFORE they go dead. However, some batteries do just give out over time. I'm just waiting for my Averatec's battery to stop holding any charge...

There's not much you can do. Perhaps look for another battery on ebay, or there are some sites that will put new batteries in the old casing.
 
Hmm, I attempted the technique suggested above, but to no avail. Any other options to try out, Or am I stuck dishing out money for a new battery?
 
The problem with rechargables at times is fooling the charger into thinking it's full when it's low. Sometimes you can trick the charger into seeing a full charge with the method described earlier. But there have also been some bad batches of Lithium batteries used in some makes of laptops in recent months. If you got stuck with one destined for a short life... :(
 
In a nutshell:

NiCad - Nickel Cadium - These have an issue where if you do not drain them before charging they will only re-charge from the point they ran down to, these are very rare on laptops, but they are cheaper.

LithIon - Lithium Ion - These don't have the issues of NiCad batteries, these are more common in laptops but are more expensive, my guess you have one of these, but I've never seen the issue you describe when sticking my laptop on over night.:confused:
 
That's why it sounds like a short like span seen there. The description points to what is often seen on nicads. Looking at the information seen on the battery's label will tell what type it is. If the type isn't seen there post the info here. Either way you are more likely going to be buying a new one soon enough.
 
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