Detailed battery/charging information program

[Harbinger]

I'm looking for a program (XP) that will do a detailed analysis of my battery condition. I've downloaded Battery Maximizer and it gives very little info. I'd like to know things like what the computer thinks the battery's capacity is and so on.

Also, does anyone know of a good "conditioning" program that can be run to allow me to drain the battery (not completely, I know the dangers of that) before recharging it again?

The reason for these questions is that I've rebuilt my A20m's standard battery pack with 2600 mAh cells (the originals were half that) and the computer doesn't accurately read the battery status yet.

[Terrahawk]

Battery Maximiser does that on my R40, but I am not sure what features are supported on the A20m. If you right-click on the big green battery icon, you should see a menu pop up hopefully, with an entry "Battery Information". If you select that, a window should pop up with the current battery charging/discharging information. On that window, you ought to be able to to select tabs that display other aspects of the battery, such as current capacity in watt-hours, as well as current maximum and design capacities.

[Harbinger]

Terrahawk--

Right-clicking on my green battery icon gives me one option: Close Battery Maximizer Gauge. Double-clicking on it gives me a window to choose power schemes. So, at least on mine, that doesn't work...

[Terrahawk]

Sorry, I made a mistake - do not right-click on it but single-left-click on the green battery.

[HenryW]

search google for "BatteryMon 2.0 Build 1007".

[Harbinger]

Sorry, I made a mistake - do not right-click on it but single-left-click on the green battery.

That did it! It says, among other things, my cycle count is 87. Do you think I need to worry about the battery "self-destructing" for a while? It says the first service date was in 9/2000.

[Terrahawk]

[quote="Harbinger]That did it! It says, among other things, my cycle count is 87. Do you think I need to worry about the battery "self-destructing" for a while? It says the first service date was in 9/2000.[/quote]

You might need to do a "battery reconditioning" procedure with it in order to make sure the stated capacity is the same as the battery's actual capacity. This involves charging the battery to 100%, turning off all hibernate and suspend actions and alarms and letting it run flat with a small load on it.

It is difficult to know exactly what condition the battery will be in - the battery from my X20 (from 2000) is pretty much toast at over 300 cycles, while the old battery in my R40 (2003) has about 160 cycles and about 30% of its design capacity left (i.e. about 2 hours use). The new battery in my R40 (first use October 2006) has 59 cycles and is in great condition.

In summary, the battery's not likely to suddenly die or lose large amounts of capacity unless the data in the internal chip that stores its capacity information is really wrong.