Laptop Battery Life

[iceman]

I bought a Toshiba Satellite laptop last August. I'm running Windows 7 on it.

When I first got it, the battery would last well over 2 hours with the screen on high-brightness.

Over the months, the battery is now lasting less and less time - now I'm lucky to get just over 1.5 hours with the screen on the minimum brightness - and that's just with normal web browsing, email, etc.
Although wifi is on, as well as using a wireless dongle for 3G internet.

If I do any image processing (lightroom, photoshop), it lasts even less.

I'm using it on battery twice a day almost every week day while I'm on the train to and from work. So it's obviously getting charged during the day and at night.

What should I expect out of battery life? and I'm not talking about how many hours - i'm talking about how long before the recharging of the battery reduces its life!!

If I buy a new battery, is it only going to last 8 months too?

Thanks!

[RickS]

8 months x 4 weeks x 5 days x 2 charge cycles a day = 320. That could certainly be enough to reduce the capacity of the battery if you're discharging the batteries by a significant amount.

Age is bad for Lithium-Ion batteries (even if they're not in use). Elevated temperatures are bad too. Full discharges are bad. Partial discharges are better and you'll get more discharge/charge cycles the lighter the discharges are. You may find the specs for your battery only "guarantee" some hundreds of cycles.

There's plenty of good info on the Interwebs, e.g. http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batter ies

Cheers,
Rick.

[multiweb]

I've had a TOSHIBA Satellite for the past 5 years running WinXP pro. I get 2h on battery so it is consistent with what you are experiencing. What kills laptop batteries is the memory effect. If you run your laptop on battery every day then end up pluging it in the power at the office when the battery is 75% discharged let's say, ove time you will develop a memory effect. So when your laptop next reaches 25% full on battery it will drop down to 0% instantly, that's why it is better to run it down before recharging it. Your battery will last longer. Keep this in mind for your next battery. Nothing you can do about this one now.

[rogerg]

Your experience sounds about what I would expect from my past and present laptops Mike. 3 years is about the limit for a laptop battery I find, and by then there isn't much like left compared to new.

I thought about running without battery (when at home on power) and keeping the battery in the fridge at 2/3 capacity charge (what I understood to be a good way to extend life) but never have, not practical.

[kustard]

If the battery is a Lithium-Ion type then it will not suffer from the memory effect. Lithium-Ion batteries prefer a partial discharge/charge cycle with a full discharge/charge cycle every so often (I do this once a month with my iPhone and it works well).

[multiweb]

I've heard that before yeah, but all the laptops I've owned ended up struggling in the last 25% to 10% of battery life. I don't know enough about battery technology to understand why. In practice running it down worked fine. That first battery I had lasted about a year from new. I've had this one for 4yrs now and I still can get 2-3h out of one charge. I'm not sure which type it is though. Will check.

[iceman]

hmm interesting.

I had heard from time to time that you should take the battery out when using AC power, to extend the life of the battery.

This seems to go against that:



I'll have to contact Toshiba and see what they 'guarantee'.

[iceman]

Also Roger, I can't see this lasting anywhere near 3 years. After only 8 months it's already going down hill fast.

In another 8 months it'll only last 1 hour!

[StarStuff]

i've had a Toshiba Satellite running Win7 for around 8 months, used daily and usually powered through AC adapter, 2 or 3 times a month i will run it off the battery until it gets below 10% then fully charge it... still getting close to 2 1/2 hours from the battery... laptop is unplugged when not in use...

i believe there is a 12 cell replacement available for most Satellite models if/when you go down that road... a little pricey but might be worth a look...

cheers...
Ian...

[iceman]

Where would you get a replacement from? Direct from Toshiba, or is there good (cheaper) after-market ones?

[StarStuff]

personally i would stick with a Toshiba replacment available in both 6 and 12 cell... i have a L650 so this may not be the exact one that you are after...

http://www.mytoshiba.com.au/products/accessories/batteries/pa3819u-1brs/accessories#details

reading the reviews on the US site (http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/adet.to?poid=468548) it looks like the 12 cell will run your lappy somewhere between 5 - 7 hours... hmmm now you have me thinking about it...

cheers...
Ian...

[ZeroID]

WiFi sucks your power big time, especially if it is struggling for connection in poor mobile coverage. But batteries also have a cycle limit, normally about 1000 or so charge/discharge cycles and you are eating them up pretty rapidly.
Depends also on the battery manufacturer and their build quality. I use an old Sony Vaio and even after 4 years or so still get good life while using local WiFi to my home router.
On the other hand all the DELLS I issue at work (400+) have a stated battery warranty of 12 months and you can almost gurarantee that they will indicate that the battery is reaching end of life at 14 months or so when they drop to about 30 minutes run time. The rest of the laptop is given a 3 year warranty.
You gets what you pay for I suppose ....

[iceman]

Mine is an L650D.

I submitted an email to Toshiba tech support to see how I go about making a claim on warranty to get a replacement battery.

If that doesn't work, I'll probably end up getting the 12 cell one you linked to. But at $200 it's not cheap!

[The_bluester]

I was going to say much the same thing as Brent. my understanding of the new lithium jobs is that they have a roughly 1000 cycle maximum lifetime. The killer is that plugging a nearly fully charged laptop in to mains has much the same effect charge cycle wise as running the battery to the dregs and then plugging it in. The Lithium jobs do not really suffer from memory effect as such, but how they behave as they go off appears about the same as a NiCad with a memory effect problem.

It is a bit of a problem here at work, most of us use laptops as we have to be mobile, but most of the time we are in our main office so we walk in the door, plonk the laptop on the dock and fire it up, adding at least one charge cycle to the batteries tally nearly every day while only actually running it off the battery once a week or so. After about two and a half to three years they turn up their toes and are useless in the field unless we get a new battery.

[iceman]

I contacted Toshiba Support.

This was their reply:



I replied and said that 60 minutes was not acceptable or normal.

They then said:


So it doesn't look like I'll have any luck :(

[iceman]

hmm there's an after-market one here (http://www.e-store.net.au/laptop-battery/brand.php/TOSHIBA/67754/Satellite%20L650D-13U#NTB086) (9600 mAh) for $110 + shipping.

If the genuine Toshiba only lasts a year, how much worse can a generic brand be? :)

[h0ughy]

thats what i have done is purchase the upspeced generic battery. i also got one of these http://www.electronic-parts.com.au/out/product.php/178/78/Universal+External+Li-Ion+Laptop+Battery for some extra grunt outside

[iceman]

hmm nice, does that work?

How much extra life does that give?

[gary]

Hi Mike,

Here is a recent anecdote that may be useful.

We purchased two new identical Toshiba Satellite laptops in June 2009.
Both were typically run off batteries a couple of hours a day.

Both were used in the same environment with WiFi connectivity.
The power settings on both machines were set identically so they would not
automatically suspend themselves.

Machine A, when not in use, was typically plugged back into its AC adapter.
At least once per month, as per the recommendation that comes with the PDF Toshiba
User's Manual with the machine, it was operated off battery power until the
battery was depleted and then it was plugged back into the AC to completely
recharge. When left idle, this particular machine was typically left operating off AC
with its lid open so it could be used at a moment's notice.

Machine B was typically charged fully and then not re-charged until the battery
was depleted. When not in use, its lid was closed and it was allowed to suspend itself.

After approximately 18 months, the battery run time on Machine A had dropped to
approx. 10 minutes. On machine B, the battery run time on Machine B had dropped
to approx. 30 minutes.

This was consistent with a previous generation (circa 2001) Toshiba laptops
we used.

Given the minimal sample size, perhaps not much can be reliably read from this
except for the fact that for these two machines, after about a year, the batteries
would be regarded by most users as being toward the end of their practical usefulness.

As you can appreciate, the underlying technology in laptops has followed
Moore's Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law).
As speeds increase, so do their power requirements and portable systems designers
are engaged in a relentless challenge to achieve the highest speeds, when required,
and yet to minimize the overall power consumption of their devices. Such
power/speed trade offs take place from everywhere down to the gate level all
the way up to the operating system. However, despite advances in battery
technology, it has not maintained the same dizzying pace as semiconductor
technology and this raises the bar for laptop designers even further.

As has been noted, the batteries that ship with many laptops often have
lower mAh capacities to keep the price lower.

[h0ughy]

if i use it with the netbook, between it and the bigger battery all night - up to 8-10hours

on the more high performance items like 17" laptop with dual core - 2-3h additional time

[acropolite]

that's the way I understand it as well, Apple recommend that procedure on the iphone.

[kustard]

*nods*

I have heard that as Lithium-Ion age their "useful" life decreases. It seems that no matter what battery you have your mileage will vary depending on how you use it and how you charge it. I would have thought though that a relatively new battery would be better designed and last a bit longer, though the role of the actual battery charger can influence battery life greatly.

The Asus laptop my wife has is about 5 years old now, has a Lithium-Ion and is virtually always plugged into the AC. At the times she does go portable, the laptop will last about 2hours. I must admit though that she hardly ever goes portable.

As others have suggested Mike, getting a super battery pack will probably help you extend your laptop usage time.

[multiweb]

Very interesting thread. I'll keep that one in mind too for my iPod.

My TOSHIBA Satellite battery is a Li-ion (4300mAh) MODEL NO. PA3395U-1BRS. It says it contains Nickel-Cadmium and Nickel-Metalhybride.

It's quite bigger in volume than the new slimline types. It looks more like a brick shape. I left the laptop run out and I got a bit over 2h out of it from a full charge. It's about 4yrs old now.

[iceman]

Well I've just ordered a new after-market replacement battery. It's not the high capacity Toshiba one - but $68 instead of $200 seems fine for now.

If this replacement only lasts a year as well, then I'll get a $200 one next time.

It's getting to the point where sometimes I only get just over an hour out of the current battery, on minimum brightness. Really frustrating when I'm trying to work on the train.

I might look at getting that portable battery thing that h0ughy has next time too.

[ZeroID]

We replace all our laptops at 3 years regardless. The technology and the software bloat factor says that is all they are good for and the warranty runs out. Try getting any parts at all for a DELL over 3 years old, just about impossible. Batteries have been sitting on the shelf for years, they only do one batch to cover the life of them all so they are pre-knackered I reckon. That's why the generics do better, they are normally of a more recent manufacture.
I have a cupboard full (40-50) of 3-4 year old DELLs at work. Most still work but they become so unreliable it is not worth re-issuing them to the feild. Use some for parts to support the others still going but we have an ongoing schedule to replace them constantly. Keeps me employed ...