[dba-Tech] Laptop Batteries

I think I may talked the Dell tech rep into a replacement - he put two boys
through college and has a soft spot for college kids.  Max uses his a LOT
and usually on the battery because they take them to class.  Hopefully
they'll replace the current 6 cell with a 9 cell.

R

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Gary Kjos
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 3:14 PM
To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Laptop Batteries

I believe they are rated for a specific number of cycles. The more often you
discharge and recharge the quicker they wear out.

They usually offer upgraded batteries with more cells in them that would
last longer since they wouldn't normally be as fully discharged.
And many systems offer you a second battery so you could rotate them somehow
although I don't know how you would recharge the "other one"
while one was in the machine.

Any battery powered device will eventually wear out the battery.

I don't run my laptops on battery much, I generally have them tethered to
their power cord 90% of the time, so I really have no idea of how long of
life they had "before" or now for that matter. I think they only were good
for about an hour or two when they were new.

Much also depends on what kind of work you are doing. How many times it has
to spin the hard drive etc. Or how computationally intensive the processes
you are doing are. Laptops generally have power management set so that the
chip runs SLOWER when it can to save power.
I know my laptops were all set to run in a lower screen brightness under
battery verses plugged in which was one reason I usually plugged it in.

Buy another battery and keep the other one as a second.

GK

On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 4:28 PM, Rocky Smolin <rockysmolin at bchacc.com> wrote:
> Max's Dell laptop is 18 months old.  The battery life has declined to 
> about
> 1 hour.  He does have the three year on-site warranty but Dell is 
> telling him that the battery isn't covered after one year.  Seems 
> rather mean to me but anyway - how much life can one expect from a 
> laptop battery?  This one is used a LOT.
>
>
>
> TIA
>
>
>
> Rocky
>
>
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>
>



--
Gary Kjos
garykjos at gmail.com

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