How do you recondition T2* series batteries?

[fefrie]

I thought I had at least a 40 minute battery with my t23, but as of late it has dramatically dropped to 20 minutes.

Is this a problem with a recharging method, battery chemistry, or some sort of battery management program gone arawy? (sp)

I've now started the habbit of turning off all the low level battery alarms, and running till it's dead. However, I'm not really sure of the battery power because I usually get to a power source before the power really does cut out.

Anyways, any tips would be helpfull. Thanks

[rkawakami]

Download and install the Battery MaxiMiser utility from here:

Battery MaxiMiser

if you don't already have it. When it's running, click the battery icon to the left of the system tray and select "Battery Information". Select the "Status Detail" tab. This should tell you the state of charge of the battery. What is important is the entry "Full Charge Capacity". Make a note of the Wh value. Now click the "Information" tab and check the "Design Capacity". Comparing those two figures will give you an idea of how well your battery is going to perform (or not).

For example, the battery currently in my T23 has a design capacity of 38.88Wh. The full charge capacity is 39.14Wh. Which means that the battery is performing better than what is expected of it. That it also was first used in June 2000 and only has a cycle count of 22 is not too important (in my opinion anyway). I normally leave the system plugged into the charger all night but usually once a day I roam around the house with it. Generally I get about 1.5 hours of use out of it (1.2Ghz with built-in wireless) before the battery charge gets down to 30 or 40%. That's typicaly when I re-dock it.

It's normally suggested that you drain the battery and fully charge it a couple of times in a row so that you "recondition" it. You can do this like you mentioned (turn off all alarms and running 'til almost dead) but it's not what I have done before. As Windows can sometimes mis-report the actual remaining time you cannot be sure that you are really close to the end. So, instead I use PC Doctor for DOS and execute the Battery Rundown feature. Since the system is booted into PC-DOS, there's no danger in having Windows crash and leaving open files or not flushing the disk write cache. There's also no timers you have to bypass since it's DOS.

The Battery Rundown test exercises the system by running several diagnostics continuously, while keeping track of the run time. You can essentially walk away from the system while the battery is drained. After it has depleted the battery, charge it back up. Execute the rundown test again and it will tell you how long the previous session lasted. This way you know if the consecutive discharge/charge cycles is improving your runtime. As the same tasks are always being perfomed during the rundown, you can be assured of a consistent discharge rate from one session to the next and thus be able to compare "apples with apples". Trying to do that with Windows is not very accurate or practical.

PC Doctor for DOS can be had from here:

IBM download site - diskette version (which seems to be having some problems at the moment)

or here:

My personal site (.ISO image)

Choose whatever method you can perform (creating bootable floppies or CD) and boot the system off of the selected media. Follow the menu directions (swap floppies and/or press any key a couple of times). The Battery Rundown test is located under the Utility menu.