old battery?

[Eberhard Roloff]

Paul Kaplan wrote:

> On Saturday 20 January 2007 4:23 pm, Mario Vukelic wrote:
>> On Sat, 2007-01-20 at 15:49 -0500, Paul Kaplan wrote:
>> > On Saturday 20 January 2007 3:30 pm, Mario Vukelic wrote:
>> > > On Sat, 2007-01-20 at 15:04 -0500, Paul Kaplan wrote:
>> > > > How can I tell how much charge my laptop battery has when full?
>> > >
>> > > On Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper) and 6.10 (Edgy) you should be able to unplug
>> > > and then see a battery icon in the notification area (I can't
>> > > remember how it was in earlier versions). Hover the mouse cursor over
>> > > it and it should show you the remaining time. If you don't see the
>> > > battery icon then go to menu System/Preferences/Power Management and
>> > > configure when the icon is shown.
>> >
>> > I was looking for something more technical.  I'm trying to figure out
>> > whether the battery is loosing it's ability to hold a charge or whether
>> > it's just discharging very rapidly.
>>
>> I see :) Poke around in /proc/acpi/battery/*, using cat on the cmd line.
>> I don't know what exactly to do with the info there, but it might give
>> you hints.  E.g., on my laptop:
>>
>> cat /proc/acpi/battery/C1B1/info
>> present:                 yes
>> design capacity:         4659 mAh
>> last full capacity:      4659 mAh
>> battery technology:      rechargeable
>> design voltage:          10800 mV
>> design capacity warning: 233 mAh
>> design capacity low:     47 mAh
>> capacity granularity 1:  100 mAh
>> capacity granularity 2:  100 mAh
>> model number:            Primary
>> serial number:           00719 2006/09/04
>> battery type:            LIon
>> OEM info:                Hewlett-Packard
>>
>> cat /proc/acpi/battery/C1B1/state
>> present:                 yes
>> capacity state:          ok
>> charging state:          charged
>> present rate:            0 mA
>> remaining capacity:      4496 mAh
>> present voltage:         12257 mV
> 
> As I suspected...
> design capacity:       47520 mWh
> last full capacity:      14910 mWh
> 
> Will cycling the battery from full to discharge 2-3 times restore the
> ability
> to charge to design capacity?  Is there anything else I might try or am i
> destined for a replacement?
> P
you are most likely destined for a replacement, since modern batteries very
rarely react positively on power cycling. However you can always try.
If you try, you better try hard. I found the very old compaq battery
calibration tool invaluable for this.

you should get this or something similar by googling for "laptop battery
calibration tool"

Kind regards
Eberhard