A notebook battery guide - Page 2

with it turned on then it is normal, but if turned it is definately not normal.

Once again, Studd, you are restating what I have already said from my first point. I am sorry, but I dont understand what your point is or what you are saying that is relevant to the issue.

Could you please clarify?

Try taking the battery out for a day. If you plug it back in and it has kept its charge, then the computer's drawing battery power while it's sitting idle. The CMOS draws a small charge while the computer is off- but I doubt it would be enough to drain 25% of a battery...

Already did that. When I leave it out of the unit, it loses power at exactly half of the rate....about .5% per hour....or about 12% overnight as opposed to 25%.

And to think I've been conditioning my Li-Ion by draining/recharging it on a regular basis...At least now I know I won't have to do it anymore. Great guide!

for AMD people

Edit/Update: apparently with the newest processor drivers (i.e. 1.3.1 -- released in May 2006), the Power Management Tab will no longer appear in Device Manager windows. I assume this means that the new drivers do not support PowerNow!, or at least do not let you micro-manage the settings. If/when I find more information on the newest drivers & their power management capabilities, I will come back & edit this post again. The 1.2.2.1 drivers are no longer on AMD's website.

***Original Post Follows***

For those with AMD processors, some extra degree of power management is available by downloading the latest processor drivers from the AMD website (links provided below). Oftentimes (as was the case with mine), the new laptop will have the WinXP processor driver installed--which doesn't have PowerNow! support, or at least, doesn't allow you to micro-manage the PowerNow! settings.

PowerNow! allows automatic powering-down of devices not in use (so you don't have to manually enable/disable them thru the Control Panel as recommended in the article above, unless you want to, but the effect is [pretty much] the same). Supposedly it also helps with processor throttling. Unfortunately, it works partly thru XP's Power Management window, so it doesn't bypass OS control of power management, but augments it. I recommend it, though, to anyone with a Mobile AMD Athlon64.

Once installed, you can go to the Control Panel--> Device Manager & open the Properties window for the devices you want to micro-manage. In the Properties window, you will now have a "Power Management" tab for certain devices (including USB hubs, PCMCIA card slots, WiFi, etc.). The default setting is to power-off each device when not in use (there is a check-box at the bottom of the Power Management tab in the window, which you can check or un-check).

Example: Since I never use my PCMCIA slot, I manually disable it (you can see that in the first screenshot), rather than let PowerNow! choose when to turn it off. But I _occasionally_ use my Ethernet port so I let PowerNow! automatically manage that by right-clicking on the Ethernet controller in the Device Manager, then clicking on the Power Management tab, & checking the box that says "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power."





To install the new processor driver, simply download the .exe file & run it. I think the .exe file might be the same for all processors, but I'm not sure, so, to be safe, I'll give separate links for each processor. Somewhere in those pages you can also find a 'Cool & Quiet' driver for Linux, as well, but only for desktop systems; I don't think it works for Mobile chips yet.

Links (scroll part-way down & find Processor Driver 1.2.2.1 or 1.2.2.2 [1.2.2.1 is for 32-bit WinXP, 1.2.2.2 is for 64-bit WinXP]):
Mobile AMD Athlon64
Mobile AMD Sempron (32-bit)
Opteron 64
(non-mobile) Athlon64
AMD Turion 64
Dual Core Athlon 64

Note: once installed, the WinXP (32-bit) Device Manager will say that the Processor Driver revision is 1.2.2.0, but in fact it is the updated 1.2.2.1 [don't be put off by it]. Bon Apetit!~

My battery won't charge above 80% anymore. I've only had this laptop for 13 months, what could be wrong?

/proc/acpi/battery/BAT0 $ cat info
present: yes
design capacity: 4400 mAh
last full capacity: 3826 mAh
battery technology: rechargeable
design voltage: 11100 mV
design capacity warning: 160 mAh
design capacity low: 100 mAh
capacity granularity 1: 64 mAh
capacity granularity 2: 64 mAh
model number: D470K
battery type: LION
OEM info: SMP

Good info

This is really a good stuff to learn..

http://netwallpapers.com

Good info on the battery section, that ties with the papers i have read..

Also worth noting for li-ion batteries..

The internal resistance varies as a function of temperature.

It's high in cold temps, lower in warm temps.

Therefore in cold temps, especially sub zero you'll get about 1/2 the capacity you would get at room temperature.

The british army found this out the hard way!

in my opinion sony is passing off a bad battery on you. isnt the state of customer service in our modern world excellent? the customer is officially always wrong.

currently i am having/have had exceptional difficulty discovering why i cannot upgrade my ram. the store that sold my notebook to me could not figure out the problem. it seems none of their employee's across 3 different locations did not know the difference between DDR and DDR2 memory. (nor did they know that such a difference even existed) and HP had no interest in selling me anything other then replacements for the units that came with my system.. they simply forwarded me to crucial.. but thats an american company and i'm not mail ordering ram and shipping it across the border to have it not fit my system.. and since their stupid memory identification program doesnt work on my computer they dont offer a money back "right memory for the job" garuntee if it doesnt fit.

ranting.. sorry.. unrelated to battery post..

I thought customer service was gone too, but I talked to some people in alienware's forums here (I have an alienware) and now they are gonna send me a brand new laptop in trade for my old one.

You should go over to the sony forums here and see what others have to say who have sonys.

Good luck

Hey peeps... Great article! Only one thing that didn't become clear for me: What's best when using it mostly as a DTR?

1) Always use it with the charger connected (with the possible problems related with the battery being @ high temps)

or

2) Always charge it to 100%, use it without the charger connected, and when battery is close to be empty, recharge it (consuming charging cycles)


Thanks!!!

I would guess it's better to stay with the charger connected because you won't wear the battery that much. Anyway, if the battery gets warm by staying in contact with the notebook, then I don't know, but I would still stick with the 1st.

Great article. It is nice to know there are people out there willing to share their knowledge without charging a fee. The world is so $$$ oriented...nothing is free these days. I appreciate your work and your willingness to share it with us!

Great article Adam

this is what's good in being in other countries. in my place, you can hardly find a tech support for your notebook. and if ever you find one, it'll cost you a lot... literally a lot.

thank you for a nice guide.

anyone know how to check how well the battery is?

Yup! Download this:
http://www.pbus-167.com/chc.htm#anchor_download

When you run the program, there's a tab that says "Battery." In there, there's a "percent wear level" value. I forgot exactly how it tests the health, but I think it compares the amount of power the battery has when it's at 100% charged to the listed storage value...

my dell 9800 only gets 3 hours

i bought a new battery and it gets only 2 more hours