Thought I'd post this up in case anyone else has a laptop battery that isn't lasting like it used to. I traded laptops with my step son since the dell we got him last year turned out to be junk. The battery in it was only lasting for 20 minutes or so. I shut off all the alarms and stuff under power management so that I could drain it all the way. I was surprised to see it run for another 20 minutes after it said 0% charge. After running it till it shut off, then charging it to 100% a few times it seems to be doing a lot better. It's lasting over an hour now. Thought someone might get some use out this.

 

i thought dell was under some sort of forced recall on those batteries as part of a class action lawsuit or something.

 

Wow, I'll have to google that! I know I'll never send another cent their way after watching them "support" this POS. His younger sister got a mac for graduation this year

 

any laptop battery that lasts less than 2 hours has something really wrong with it. My dells battery lasts about 5 1/2 hours!

 

Yeah, my 9300 Inspiron's battery lasts close to 8 hours, but I don't usually use it unless I am on vacation, or feel like poking around with it. When I do use it, I usually have it plugged in because it doesn't move very far anyway.

 

battery life is dependant on ALOT of things... the mAH the battery is rated for, the speed and type of cpu, screen brightness, harddrive usage, optical drive usage, any other accessory usage.

centrino laptops will last 5+ hours... if using them lightly, if you were say to watch a DVD with the screen brightness at max.. you might get 3 or so hours (guessing, although I have used centrino laptops, I have never had them running solely on battery from full to dead, while watching a movie).

my old desktop cpu in my laptop is a 2.66GHz (Inspiron 5100), and I generally get about 2 to 2.5 hours... if im browsing the internet, with my screen slightly less then at full brightness and my power settings set to 'always on'. If i put in a DVD, as long as it's not over 90min, I can usually get to the end credits before it gives the low battery warning.

The biggest save of power you can do after adjusting the power properties, is lower the brightness of your screen as much as is comfortable to your eyes.

just my $0.02.

 

laptop batterys do die over time. my Dell Latitude is 4 years old so the battery only last at mat 30 mins. but even when it was new it never really lasted longer then 2 hrs either. its build to be a desktop replcement, so it has a big screen, all the bells and whistles, and even tho its 4 years old its STILL to spec wiht new laptops. Intel P4, 1.6 GHz, 512 ram, and 40 gig hard drive.

 

Yea, I used my laptop as my primary comp for 4 years. The first year the bat lasted about 2 hours, the secnod year about half that and so on till now it doesn't even last a half second! I have an HP but still, they do die over time, especially if you use it pluged in all the time like I did.

 

that sucks that that happened to you mine has just turned 3.. using it as a desktop computer always plugged in (except for when travelling), just did a battery test.. 2 hours of life, about 30 min off when it was new. guess i got lucky. go lithium batteries.