On Saturday 04 Jun 2005 11:24 pm, Ian wrote: > On Saturday 04 Jun 2005 20:12, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote: > > Ian wrote: > > > On Saturday 04 Jun 2005 18:36, JR wrote: > > > > > > I'd expect a laptop to last at least 5 years without repair. > > > Either you are extremely ham fisted or you bought a dud. > > > Laptop batteries aren't known for longevity, although completely > > > discharging them is a sure recipe for failures (the charger > > > usually can't bring it back up from zero). > > > > I find this interesting, because the directions for the Li-Ion pack > > for my Thinkpad recoment doing a full cycle to full discharge, and > > then full recharge every 3 months. The instructions for the Ni-Cad > > recoment doing it at least monthly. I am not sure about systems > > using Ni-MH batteries... > > Yeah, thats what the instructions here said as well.......... > Full discharge (left on by mistake a couple of times) resulted in the > pack not working . The manufacturers agents claimed this caused the > failure and advised us not to let it go 10%.
NiCd (and to a much smaller extent NiMH) batteries suffer from memory effect. If you charge them from anything but zero they remember and run out at that point the next time around. It is vital with NiCd batteries to only do full recharges if you can manage it. If the battery does fail that way you can often recover them with repeated full cycles. So, so far as I can see the agents' instructions were a recipe to force a failure if the batteries were NiCd, and none too safe if they were NiMH. If the charger wouldn't charge from zero I'd demand a refund. -- Richard Urwin
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