>-----Original Message----- >From: Michael <[email protected]> >Sent: Thursday, September 15, 2022 11:01 AM >To: [email protected] >Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Full battery laptop only 1 hour > >On Thursday, 15 September 2022 18:10:39 BST Laurence Perkins wrote: >> Note that most batteries these days in anything more complex than a >> watch have "smart" charge controllers and so upower or similar can >> read what their design watt-hours and current maximum capacity are. >> Also, often the total charge or discharge rate. That plus a little >> math should tell you if it's an aging battery or if your machine is >> simply failing to idle down for some reason. > >> LMP > >Larger capacity batteries have multiple banks in them connected in parallel. >Some times one of the banks or its controller(?) fails and while the rest >continue to work, the loss in capacity is a noticeable step change. I recall >suddenly losing ~1/3 of the battery capacity on a laptop just 3 or so happy >years into its life. The remaining of the battery capacity continued to >degrade slowly and gradually over many years. So notwithstanding the high >consumption identified by the OP the software causes of which should be >investigated, there could be also a problem with the battery unit itself. > >BTW, short & frequent top ups of lithium-ion batteries is the best approach to >their charging, while deep discharge can guarantee a shorter effective life. > At the same time, don't make it too short. The charger has to run for a few seconds to a few minutes to determine that the battery is, in fact, full, and repeated overcharging in that manner will destroy the battery in short order. Let it run down at least a few percent before you plug it in again.
Their lifetime is generally happiest if you keep them between 50 and 80%. Some packs automatically cut off the charging at the 80% mark and just tell you that it's full in order to increase the cycle count. LMP
