My son has a rel problem with his Dell laptop. A friend told him that the laptop runs on battery whether or not it is plugged in to AC and this depletes the battery life. It is also a problem in that you think you are fully charged, but since the computer has actually been draining the battery, you might unplug when you are near the bottom of the batttery cycle and find your battery is flat in just a few minutes. This happens to my son all the time, so I believe the description. This has happened since the laptop was new, also. He has had it for a year and a half and he's on his second factory battery. Is this normal?
What brand is the best for battery life and performance?
Thanks for your suggestions.
2007-09-12 21:57:36 · 4 answers · asked by Picture Taker 7 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Laptops & Notebooks
Hi Dr Sam,
Firstly your friend's information is incorrect. Whenever AC power is applied to the laptop, the battery begins charging. It continues to charge until a sensor circuit inside the battery says the battery has had enough. In a healthy battery, this will be when the battery is charged.
Lithium Ion batteries are funny creatures the stuff itself is rather fussy and not all that stable, so each battery has a circuit inside that monitors the battery. This circuit makes all the decisions. It measures heat and the state of charge etc and decides when the battery is charged, flat or even if the battery has gone faulty. Occasionally this circuit makes a miistake and marks the battery as faulty even though it isn't.
Modern Lithium Ion batteries do not suffer from memory effect the way NiMH and NiCd batteries do. This is the reason why all laptops charge the battery until full, there is no point in flattening the battery. But whilst the older batteries were good for as many as 1000 charge cycles, the modern Lithium Ion is only usually good for around 300 cycles. A cycle is every time the laptop is plugged. If you use it every day for a year - exit one battery.
At any time, the circuit may make the wrong decision about the state of charge of the battery because of heat or other factors and stop charging the battery even when it is not full. This may account for your son's problem. It appears to me that Dell is not one of the better brands in relation to this issue. It may be due to the fact that the cases vent poorly or the batteries are installed too close to other heat producing components, but either way it doesn't matter if you aren't getting what you want.
The best battery life will depend on a lot of factors. Features such as advanced graphics adapters for game play tend to drain battery life, but the biggest killer is a large screen. Certainly 17" screen laptops tend to eat batteries. The only kicker of course is that the smaller the screen the smaller the unit the smaller the battery, so it's somewhat of a vicious cycle.
I just can't lay my hands on the article now, but a recent article in a computer magazine here, indicated that Toshibas in particular have better battery lives in particular the business models such as the Tecra series. I also like Toshibas from an IT support point of view because they never break. In over 100 that I support at the moment, none have ever been returned.
If replacing the laptop perhaps consider the following.
Smaller screen - screens eat power
Lots of RAM - excess data is written off to the hard drive - which uses more power than the RAM. 2GB is a nice amount
Use windows XP if possible ahead of Vista, early signs so far indicate that Vista is a power piggy.
Get a laptop with integrated video such as the Intel integrated adapters instead of a huge NVidia or ATI graphics adapter.
When setting up the computer, review each power setting carefully and set it to use full power when plugged in but to be very conservative when running on batteries. Some Toshibas even let you turn the screen brightness down when running on batteries.
A bit to think about there, but I hope this helps.
Regards, ~~~teef~~~
2007-09-13 23:09:16 · answer #1 · answered by teef_au 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The laptop should keep the battery full charged when on AC so that when you disconnect the adapter the laptop should have a full battery (or as full as it's been charged up to).
I've never had anything like what you describe happen to me. I have had Li-Ion battery aging which you can't do anything about although all brands are just as good (bad) in that regard and the battery should still have a few years of providing decent run time (not second battery within two years stuff).
If the laptop is still under warranty or you can convince them that the problem started under warranty then you should probably get it fixed because this sounds like something wrong with the computer although the symptoms are very strange and I can't really say what could cause them.
2007-09-12 22:17:41 · answer #2 · answered by bestonnet_00 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The battery can be removed and the LT would run on direct current. Sounds like something is wrong with the charger. HPs have good battery life. But you should definitely have the power chord and charger checked out with Dell as well as the battery.
2007-09-13 00:13:52 · answer #3 · answered by lueeluee 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I strongly recommend something made by Asus or Acer. Hp and Toshiba are cheap but not great quality and burn out fast. If you have any issues with Asus's computers they will replace it free! Hp has problems with their GPU's and cooling techniques. Keep in mind I have worked on many computers and the ones that mostly come in are HP, Toshiba, and Dell. Plus I have owned at lease one computer of each brand
2016-05-18 04:00:24 · answer #4 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋