Windows 7 - Stupid Stupid Laptop Battery

Hi,
My laptop has had 1 year of what I would call "heavy" use. Although it has been plugged into the wall all its life (1 year) the battery is now dying in under 10 minutes. This really sucks as it means I lose the portability of my laptop. I don't have any way of getting money for a new laptop at the moment and I'm not spending $150 to get a new battery. I'm kinda stuck. What should I do?

what kind of battery is it?

And that's just where you went wrong, you never run a laptop long term on charge or it screws the battery

OK time for drastic action

If possible backup and image your system - better safe than sorry

Use the powerconfig options/Power management in the control panel to switch off all warnings and especially actions related to battery level.

Charge the battery to full

Run the laptop on battery until it dies through lack of battery.

re-charge the battery

Repeat the run until die stage

Hopefully after charge you should see some improvement

Reset the power options to protect you in normal use

In future always run the system on battery at least once a week preferably until it runs down to the switch off stage. (this is not the drastic type as above but the controlled type at 5% remaining )

Also if you are buying a battery - As the laptop manufacturers buy in a battery rather than manufacture it, it is possible to obtain generic spares, often at a considerable saving - just check out any company before dealing with them.

ok, thanks guys. I have been running it flat atleast once a week though, or do I need to just run it off battery as much as possible?

The problem here is that windows in default mode will not allow you to run the battery to a fully discharged state, when It thinks that the battery is exhausted it will shut down the system. if Windows is picking up a confused reading from the battery software it may well shut down the system when there is charge left.

The process you need to do is the condition the battery, which is done by disabling the windows monitoring software and using the system until it actually runs out and stops - this is like pulling the plug on a desktop system so is not a good idea for normal use

What I tend to do is run some sort of high power application - (Play a music CD) - that will not be damaged by "pulling the plug"

After you have conditioned the battery you should try to run on battery at least once a week, (untill the battery hits the warning level), to keep the batter conditioned

I must add of course that for your case this may be to late but it is definitely worth a try

This is some really good information. Thanks a lot man.

Just to let you know, I mananged to get a new battery for $9 NZ. It should be here soon. I will tell you what its like

Now see I been asking this same question for so long now its unbelievable. And you gave the answer. that is so freaking great. My battery been dieing out really quick anymore and losing life and ivce only had tyhis for 3 months. It went from3 hour battery life down to 2 hour battery life. So tonight im going to condition it and see if i can get my battery life back. Maybe even get more life out of it.


And where did yo get a spare for $9 at FB???

For future reference, you should NEVER keep a laptop plugged in for that long. The battery won't be able to hold a charge anymore after a few weeks to a month. Personal experience.