Battery going from 7.5 hrs to 4.5 hrs capacity

[mikealevy]

I have X60S Thinkpad, with 8 cell battery -- started off with 7.5 hrs of capacity -- after just a "few weeks" it's down to 4.5 hrs -- any ideas / thoughts?

[SkiBunny]

Did you change your BIOS ?

Defective battery?

Mine is 4 months old and i still easily get 7+ hours of actual use on battery (with wireless on the whole time and medium-low display setting).

[mikealevy]

Didn't change BIOS. Probably due to changing some of the battery parameters -- I'll play with it.

[ibbo]

I don't get 7+ hours of battery life with wireless on...maybe 5 or so. My battery is around 72 Wh already with around 20 cycles. Is it reasonable to lose 3% capacity with only 20 cycles? Only 4 or 5 deep discharges.

[SkiBunny]

I've had a dozen full discharges and still show 77 wh capacity (which is above design capacity). And i got a crappy sony battery (not on recall).

As for your shorter life, depends what you do of course. And your power scheme. Mine is set to source optimized. I do text and surf, draw between 6 and 16 volts, usually around 9-12.

[ibbo]

Hi, all:

I've had my x60s for about 2 months now and it's treated me well.

However, I'm a little unhappy about the battery degradation I'm seeing. Is it typical to see about a 5% drop in capacity over 30 cycles? About a dozen or so "deep" discharges (about 30% remaining) and a few full discharges.

Also, before the green battery indicator said 7+ hours on a full charge. Now I'm lucky if it says 5. My model is 69U. I used to run matlab heavily without wireless and I would consistently get at least 6 hours of usage. Now I just use the wireless for browsing and I'm getting more like 4.5 hours.

Any ideas?

[madana]

Check this out:

http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm

for battery maintenance tips.