Lithium batteries don't have a "memory". Nicad/nimh require power cycling to retain their charge levels. They remember (chemically) how much charge they should have. They can be taught to under charge and tricked in to recharging back to a higher capacity by freezing before recharging. With lithium, the chemistry degrades over time and use. This happens whether you use the battery or not, which is why some after Market batteries suddenly die when relatively new.
As for the PMU, running the laptop on battery on a regular basis will help the software work out approximate timings, but most Apple laptops know the relative charge levels of the battery and calculate time remaining from that. Complete run downs only help when the software has gone nuts, or the battery is older and does not charge as wel, /is defective or is otherwise damaged. Sent from my iPhone On 6 Feb 2009, at 23:40, Bruce Johnson <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Feb 6, 2009, at 3:36 PM, Matt Emson wrote: > >> What you are suggesting sounds more like it will damage the battery. >> I've never needed to "calibrate" a lithium battery to get a full >> performance out of it. Sounds more like something you'd do with one >> of >> the older chemistries such as NiCAD or NiMH. > > I repeated the exact instructions that came with my new LiIon battery. > Running it until the system shuts down instead of sleeping does not > discharge the battery completely. > > This process does not calibrate the battery, what it does is calibrate > the Mac's power management system so that the displayed time and % > remaining are closer to the actual time remaining. > > -- > Bruce Johnson > University of Arizona > College of Pharmacy > Information Technology Group > > Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs > > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to Low End Mac's G-Books list, a group for those using G3 iBooks and PowerBooks (we run a separate list for G4 'Books). The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g-books?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
