Laptop battery consumption

[Andrew Farris]

On Wed, 2010-01-20 at 22:29 +0000, mdovell at comcast.net wrote:
> One thing I like on Ubuntu is it gives me more specific information on
> my laptop battery. Unfortutatly it is now down to 66%-75% range in
> terms of power. Is there any way to recalibrate batteries in terms of
> making them perform longer? I've heard some suggest you have it
> running with very little and drain it and then recharge..does this
> sound right?

afaik, it isn't possible to re-condition a laptop battery (as I believe
laptop batteries are mostly/all Lithium batteries). I believe NiCd and
NiMH batteries can be reconditioned as you described, but unfortunately
for lithiums... once capacity is gone, it's gone. Though, I do believe
that charging till it's full, and discharging till it's empty is
supposed to help slow the decay of the battery's capacity....but don't
quote me on it.


-- 
Andrew
_____________________________
Registered Linux User: 473690
Registered Ubuntu User: 22747