Laptop battery consumption

[Patton Echols]

On 01/20/2010 06:37 PM, Andrew Farris wrote:
> 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.
>
>   
Uhh, not for Lithium Ion batteries, exactly the opposite.  From this 
page at Battery U http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm  
(Thanks for the link Steve, I could not remember where I had read it.)

--PE