What counts as a battery cycle?

[Phazer]

Did a search but didn't find anything. If this has been answered before....sorry.

What exactly counts as a battery cycle?

Is it simply unplugging from the main and plugging it back in?

Is it running it down to a specific percentage?

Is it a timing thing when on battery?

Just curious.

[christopher_wolf]

Generally, running it down under 10% or 5% from full and then recharging it fully counts as a full cycle.

[dsigma6]

If you look at the Help section within Battery Maximizer or Power Manager, it states that 85% discharge equals 1 cycle.

[acasto]

If you look at the Help section within Battery Maximizer or Power Manager, it states that 85% discharge equals 1 cycle.

For some reason this doesn't always hold true. I usually had my system (T60p) docked, and it seems to follow all the rules concerning battery management fine, even when the laptop is turned off. It doesn't start charging until below my lower threshold, and stops at my upper threshold. The cycle counter held steady the whole time. But when I took it off the dock at about 85% charge and hooked it up to the A/C adaptor to flash the bios, it charged up to 98% and the cycle counter went up one.

[rkawakami]

Just a thought... Each system may be different according to whatever version of BIOS and/or embedded controller you have loaded (not sure exactly which one of those is responsible for bumping the cycle count).