subject: Recondition Your Laptop Battery - It's As Easy As 1,2,3 [print this page] Recondition Your Laptop Battery - It's As Easy As 1,2,3
If you have a laptop computer, do not expect your battery to last forever. They have a life span that can be measured mostly by how may times you charge it up. Generally it is about 300 to 500 times if you have a lithium-ion battery.
With these batteries you can recharge them at any time, even if they are not dead yet. They do not suffer from memory effect like the NiCad batteries do. With NiCad's, you need to let them fully discharge before you recharge them or they will lose there ability to take a full charge.
If you want to recondition the battery in your laptop, here is what you can do for NiMH and NiCad batteries, do not recondition Lithium-ion. This will not make them like a brand new battery but it will extend its life. First thing is fully charge the battery in the computer. When completed restart the computer.
Now you want to discharge the battery. If you disable the hibernation setting or anything else that might make the computer go into power saving mode, it would be better. Let the computer run until it shuts down due to loss of battery power, then turn it back on.
Recharge the battery to full again and repeat the above steps a few more times. This will allow you to use the battery for a longer time and you can do this no more than once a month. Replacement batteries can be expensive and stretching out their use when you are on a budget can help.
