OT: laptop battery problem

PeteC said:

Ufuk YILDIRIM said:

I have a vaio laptop, and my battery (lithium-ion) acts weird recently.

Answer-o-rama
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=lithium+laptop+battery+life&meta=

Took longer to write this post than find the answer.

Pete

It is sometimes not obvious which keywords to use!!! I tried googling with
"Lithium-ion" "battery" "problem" and didnot get anywhere!! Well, some
good sites, but not as good as yours. As it happens, because of the age of
my battery, which is more than 3 years old now, this might be normal!!
Still was wondering whether it was possible to repair it in one way or
other. New battery costs a lot apparently!

Thanks.
--
Ufuk YILDIRIM
yildirim_ufuk<AT>yahoo<DOT>co<DOT>uk

Ufuk YILDIRIM said:

It is sometimes not obvious which keywords to use!!! I tried googling
with "Lithium-ion" "battery" "problem" and didnot get anywhere!!
Well, some good sites, but not as good as yours. As it happens,
because of the age of my battery, which is more than 3 years old now,
this might be normal!! Still was wondering whether it was possible to
repair it in one way or other. New battery costs a lot apparently!

The decay in Lithium batteries is chemical, not mechanical, and about 90% of
the battery is the chemicals, so you can't repair them. Lithium Ion
batteries only have a recharge cycle of 400 - 500, so although they keep a
good charge when they're new, they do fail within about two years IME.

I'd recommend looking on eBay, and also try Maplins (www.maplin.co.uk) and
Keene (www.keene.co.uk).

Regards,

Pete.

Ufuk YILDIRIM said:

Hi all,

I know it has nothing to do with cycling (well one can see a very weak
connection since batteries are used for lights, right??), but this group
is one of two groups I lurk around regularly, and enjoy reading on/off
topic conversations. And I also know that there are ppl who are good with
computer related stuff. It is also possible that you might have
experienced similar problem. So here we go.

I have a vaio laptop, and my battery (lithium-ion) acts weird recently.
I guess I know the reason why: I have been using it mostly plugged in for
quite sometime now. When I turn the AC power off, the battery lasts about
20mins or so, then the OS (both SuSE and windoze) dies unexpectedly. When
I plug the AC power, and turn the computer on, I see that battery capacity
is shown to be around 60%ish. Have I ruined the battery totally or is
it possible to recover it, by means of jumping on it or
something?

I would appreciate any help, suggestions, pointers, etc. Thanks
in advance.

Which Vaio is it? I have had a couple of Vaio's in recent years and
like you they spend most of their time plugged in to AC. I've not had
any problems with the batteries and they last almost as long after
two/three years as they did new (rushes off to find piece of wood to touch).

--
Tony

"A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought" Lord
Peter Wimsey (Dorothy L. Sayers)

PeteC <[email hidden]> wrote:
: good charge when they're new, they do fail within about two years IME.

That tallies with my experience. On thing to note is that Linux can be very
hard on batteries until/unless you get the ACPI working properly, Laptops are
fully of special hardware that's usually unique to each maker (or at least OEM)
and doesn't tend ot be fully supported under Linux until the laptop is a couple
of years old.

Arthur

--
Arthur Clune PGP/GPG Key: http://www.clune.org/pubkey.txt
Don't get me wrong, perl is an OK operating system, but it lacks a
lightweight scripting language -- Walter Dnes

PeteC said:

Ufuk YILDIRIM said:

It is sometimes not obvious which keywords to use!!! I tried googling
with "Lithium-ion" "battery" "problem" and didnot get anywhere!!
Well, some good sites, but not as good as yours. As it happens,
because of the age of my battery, which is more than 3 years old now,
this might be normal!! Still was wondering whether it was possible to
repair it in one way or other. New battery costs a lot apparently!

The decay in Lithium batteries is chemical, not mechanical, and about 90% of
the battery is the chemicals, so you can't repair them. Lithium Ion
batteries only have a recharge cycle of 400 - 500, so although they keep a
good charge when they're new, they do fail within about two years IME.

I'd recommend looking on eBay, and also try Maplins (www.maplin.co.uk) and
Keene (www.keene.co.uk).

You need to watch for new-old stock though. The batteries will die in
2-3 years even if never used.

Tony Raven said:

Which Vaio is it? I have had a couple of Vaio's in recent years and like
you they spend most of their time plugged in to AC. I've not had any
problems with the batteries and they last almost as long after two/three
years as they did new (rushes off to find piece of wood to touch).

It is PCG-GRZ615G. Now I am more confused than before. Some people say it
is because the battery is coming to the end of its life (it is just over 3
years old). I have to find a way to test whether it is the battery
failing or the battery sensors. If it is the battery, i might consider
buying a new battery, if it is the sensors, I don't know about the
solution.

Ufuk YILDIRIM said:

I know it has nothing to do with cycling...

Just to add a bit of on-topicness to this discussion, has anyone ever
tried to charge up a laptop battery with a bike dynamo? (and/or a mobile
phone/GPS battery, for that matter)

Are there commercial products available to facilitate this, or would it
be a home electronics job? (My knowledge of electronics is not advanced
enough to know if it's even likely to be possible.)

d.

davek said:

Ufuk YILDIRIM said:

I know it has nothing to do with cycling...

Just to add a bit of on-topicness to this discussion, has anyone ever
tried to charge up a laptop battery with a bike dynamo? (and/or a mobile
phone/GPS battery, for that matter)

I saw a picture of a touring bike on the web a few years ago that had a
Toshiba Libretto mounted on the handlebars with GPS mapping installed
and all powered by a dynamo.

--
Tony

"A facility for quotation covers the absence of original thought" Lord
Peter Wimsey (Dorothy L. Sayers)

Cardinal Fang said:

PeteC said:

I'd recommend looking on eBay, and also try Maplins (www.maplin.co.uk)
and Keene (www.keene.co.uk).

You need to watch for new-old stock though. The batteries will die in 2-3
years even if never used.

Thank you very much for that very useful info.
--
Ufuk YILDIRIM
yildirim_ufuk<AT>yahoo<DOT>co<DOT>uk