How to Take Care of your laptop battery

Has the battery in your laptop getting progressively worse and losing charge? If you’re like everybody else, it almost certainly has been. The battery in my laptop is a little over a year old and yet, compared to how it used to run, the battery life is absolutely terrible. It probably runs at 50% capacity from where it was when I bought it. Laptop batteries just do this. Fortunately, there’s a way to look at your battery’s diagnostics.
It isn’t too difficult. In order to find out all the details you want to know about your battery, just browse to the directory: /proc/acpi/battery/ and then to the directory that has your battery in it.
Once you get there, you’ll see a long list of seemingly confusing information.
Amongst that information should be a “design capacity”, and “last full capacity”. They’re measured in mAh. For me, my designed capacity says 4500 mAh but my last full capacity was at 3021 mAh. That basically means my battery isn’t in the
greatest shape!
Let’s start by shooting down a popular myth: Letting your lithium ion battery drain all the way to be dead is a bad thing! [Researching about this kind of stuff is extremely useful; you'll find out what is myth, and what is fact]. Most people think that letting your laptop battery drain is good. Maybe for the older batteries, but not the new ones. Here are some key points pertaining toward lithium ion batteries.
Do not frequently discharge your battery all the way
It’s better to partially discharge your battery rather than drain it all the way. Lithium ion batteries have no “memory”, and thus have almost no reason to drain completely. However, it still may be a good idea almost drain it all the way once in 35-or-so charge cycles. This makes sure that the battery charge monitor is properly calibrated.
Keep it out of the heat!
Treat it like anything else heat sensitive, for example don’t leave the laptop in the car during the day. Heat destroys the energy in a battery. Some people leave their battery charging all week. If you do this, try to take the battery out occasionally to make sure that it cool sufficiently.
The energy in a battery will deteriorate at some rate no matter what
Even if you follow all of these tips, your battery will still wear out over time – all laptop batteries do, unfortunately. In order to save money, try not to buy a new laptop battery until you legitimately need to. If for some reason you need to store a lithium Ion battery, it’s best to keep it at 40% charge in a cool place [but not a refrigerator].
Now that you’ve read this article, you’re now in much better shape to take care of your laptop battery! Unfortunately, once a battery has lost charge, you won’t be able to get it back. The average lithium ion battery is good for 1-2 years, but if you take care of it by following the tips above, yours should manage much longer.
Need a new lithium ion battery for your notebook? LaptopsForLess.com has a huge selection of notebook batteries in stock, at very reasonable prices [often a fraction of the cost of manufacturers’ own brand replacements]. We stock replacement notebook batteries from the following manufacturers; Acer laptop battery, Apple laptop battery, Compaq laptop battery, Dell laptop battery, Fujitsu laptop battery, HP laptop battery, Lenovo laptop battery, Sony laptop battery, Toshiba laptop battery and many more. We also stock a huge selection of AC Adapters and a wide range of other notebook peripherals from all the major manufacturers too!