Battery management

[Ponting]

How to manage HP Pavilion Laptop 6-cell Li-ion battery so that its capacity remains maximum for longer duration?Suggest me some tips and software(if any) for battery management in Windows 7 Ultimate OS. :rolleyes:

[hackerz14]

try this one . . .

http://batterycare.net/en/index.html

[x3r0]

I think Windows 7 has already good power management - make sure you stick in Power Saver profile when using battery switch to Balanced once you attach it to power cord... Tweak little in Power Saver so the maximum CPU state in 5% and take the lowest display brightness - this will reduce the power consumption to minimalist.

Now, about optimizing wear level of battery, since HP Pavilion - or any other brands - doesn't have a good battery management like IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad, I suggest you to take off your battery when you're using your laptop for long period of time or heavy use (like gaming). Taking off battery of course has a risk when the electricity unexpectedly goes down but it will make your battery last much longer. It's okay always attaching the battery, but make sure you manage the heat for not going very hot, cause it can raise the battery wear level. If you really don't use the battery for a long period of time, make sure you store in when it has capacity below 50%. And last, try to recalibrate your battery at least about every 3 months.

Any software - BatteryCare, BatteryBar, etc - are only able to show some information regarding your power consumption and your battery. Maybe some of them can always make easier to switch between power profile that Windows has, but they can do nothing about your battery's wear level.

[Tweety.Abd]

I'm using Dell and I disable the charging while playing games or using for extended time periods, but I only came to know about it when my wear level reached 30% and its been constant there for about a month now. I didn't know the heat generated during game play could too potentially wear out the battery. And another thing I wanted to know, what do you mean 'recalibrate' the batter? And is there anyway to reduce the wear level?

Thanks for the information :)

[hellohello]

Now, about optimizing wear level of battery, since HP Pavilion - or any other brands - doesn't have a good battery management like IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad, I suggest you to take off your battery when you're using your laptop for long period of time ...

My goodness, I never know the heat will increase battery wear. No wonder my laptop battery dang just after a year. I never remove the battery. Attached to power supply or not, it is always there :o

Then, problem get worse already. Now, even if I connect to supply, it won't charge the battery saying it is not the genuine adapter. Geez, it is the same adapter that I use.

Thanks for the info, until I have new batter or laptop, then I can practice better battery management <_<

[x3r0]

The heat is problem for most laptop battery since they're made of Lithium ion cells. Li-ion cells are easily worn off because of heat... That's why we should keep them away from heat. Second thing that makes battery wear level goes up quickly is the battery cycle count (or another term is battery "life"). Li-ion battery, if we use them very frequently - charging, discharging, will actually, like it or not, wear off too. So, keeping your battery attached to laptop actually reduce this cycle count. That's why in IBM/Lenovo ThnkPad provide their laptop with ability to charge at selected % of its battery and stop at any % (I usually set my laptop will start charging when battery is under 7% and stop at 94% - I don't see this kind of feature in others, whether they're direct competitor of ThinkPad series like Dell Latitude, HP EliteBook, etc. Though, Latitude has an option to let you choose to allow the laptop charge its battery or not when a power supply is attached). For detail info, see here: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

Recalibrate battery is a process that takes charging until 100%, let it discharge until it "hard" turn off by itself (not by windows or any other OS) - by means the battery is completely discharged at 0%, then recharge the battery again until 100%. Recalibrate might reduce the battery wear level, but DO NOT do it very often because it will drains the battery life.

[Tweety.Abd]

Recalibrate battery is a process that takes charging until 100%, let it discharge until it "hard" turn off by itself (not by windows or any other OS) - by means the battery is completely discharged at 0%, then recharge the battery again until 100%. Recalibrate might reduce the battery wear level, but DO NOT do it very often because it will drains the battery life.

How often should I re-calibrate it? And can I just charge it full to 100% and then discharge it all the way to 0% by just turning off the charging?

[x3r0]

@Tweety.Abd:

there's no exact time when we should recalibrate our battery, but most laptop's manufacturer agree at least every 3 months we should do that... You may take a shorter time if you notice the wear level increases rapidly, but avoid to that very often (eg. every week)... 1 month is the shortest time we can take...

[hellohello]

Whats the recalibrate for? So that the OS can report accurate battery left?

Can you tell why you set it not to charge till 100%? Is it to avoid the heat?

Thanks

[x3r0]

@hellohello:

There has been a lot a discussion about battery recalibration... Have you tried googling for it? If you haven't, here's some links that might help you understand what happen behind recalibration process:

Official Instruction:

(Gateway): http://support.gateway.com/s/Mobile/Gateway/4536GZ/4201faq17.shtml

(HP): http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?cc=us&lc=en&docname=c00817650

(acer): http://acer.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2430/~/how-do-i-recalibrate-the-battery-on-my-notebook-or-netbook%3F

More detailed infromation from BatteryCare developer:

http://batterycare.net/en/guide.html

http://www.simonjstuart.com/2011/02/06/laptop-battery-calibration-dos-donts/

(there's a contravention about don't point no. 1 - some producer suggest to store below 50% - at least as far as I know, Lenovo does, or perhaps this guy is right, it must 50% exact, a little more just okay)

I hope by reading those articles above might help.

The only laptop that provides battery calibration utility up till now is IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad series (unlike any others brand, they must follow the instructions just like in one of Official Instruction above).