Battery lasts about an hour

My wife has a Gateway NE56R31u with Win 8.1 that's about 2 years old. The only time she ever uses it on battery power is when she takes it in the living room to hook it up to the TV and watch network shows online. (No cable ) She's done this maybe 25 times. The battery is good for about an hour, then she gets a low-battery warning. Isn't this a ridiculously short runtime?

 

Some laptop batteries can start to fail after two years you could just be unlucky.

Just a tip to try is to recharge then flatten by leaving it on then repeat this process
three or four times it could just kick start the battery into life.

 

Over time the laptop battery total capacity decreases, which means the battery will not last as long as it did when you first got the laptop and will continue to decrease over time. There is a link to a website below, that will explain why and a way of (with a new battery) extending its' life. _ NOTE the Headline:
Keeping Your Laptop Plugged in All the Time Will Kill Its Battery Faster
After 14 years of using Laptops and Netbooks, I can vouch that that is absolutely true...
Samsung have an Utility which allows the battery to stop charging at 80% - prolonging its life - as explained in the text at,

http://www.wired.com/2013/09/laptop-battery/

Unfortunately.... Samsung have stopped selling Laptops in Europe -

http://www.sammynetbook.com/forum/t...opping-PC-Sales-in-Europe?p=133678#post133678

After fitting and charging any new laptop battery... You might like to leave your 'old' battery in your laptop and only fit the new one when your wife wants to use it away from the mains... Charging it only after it goes below 40% (I let mine get down to 20%) then recharge and remove from the laptop,

 

Okay, thanks guys.

 

Sorry, I little bit late to the thread. I manage a number of laptops for my office and they are plugged in most of the time and they don't seem to drop off that quickly for us. That said,we spend about $80 per 6 cell battery. For a while I tried some cheaper generic batteries that cost about $30 - $40 per battery and we had a lot of problems with high defect rates and wear piling up very quickly. (I use the batterycare.net software for wear and performance data)

Here is some info I found a while back that made me think that some batteries that fail or wear quickly may be due to quality of the cells that are used.

The capacity and service life of a laptop battery depends alot on the type of cells that are used. Some less expensive cells are designed to only last 300 charges while other more expensive cells are rated for 700-800 charges and also prove higher capacities as well.​

I paraphrased a bit, but here is the source of the information above

-Allen

 

Over time battery of laptop total capacity decreases ...its fact

 

There is a small program that will tell you about your battery wear level

It can be found here

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/battery_information_view.html

 

2 years of battery life span is good enough. To prolong and save your battery life use the pc directly plugged into an AVR without battery attached.

 

I think two years of battery usage is great already. My HP's battery did the same, so I kept it plug in without the battery on my desk, unless I want sit on the couch, then I put in the battery. I found that if I just do my work, without having anything run in the background then the battery lasts a bit longer.

 

Does anyone know if there's a way to temporarily disable the battery, rather than having to completely remove it? I hope to replace my now defunct one eventually, and I'd like to extend the life of the new one as much as possible.

 

I don't think there's such a program or operation to disconnect the battery function.


One of our members brianSSDlinux POSTED THIS

If I have understood brianSSDlinux only charge the batteries when around 20% discharged.

“If you have still retained your old battery”, Then Remove the new battery WHEN CHARGED,

and put your old battery back.


Only use the new battery when needed.

 

@something back Ah, o.k., I think what that's saying is to charge the new battery, then remove it at full charge, and put the old battery back on the laptop, so the power supply being plugged in doesn't drain or damage the new battery?

 

What I recommend to do is take out your battery when you have your charger and when your battery is 100% that way, you don't overcharge and decrease your battery life. And when you are on the go, put your battery back in and you're all good.

 

Saving grains for rainy days

 

You can't overcharge lithium batteries in most devices. The belief that you will is a common misconception that is even spread by some techs that don't know any better.

The amount of charges a lithium battery can receive does not refer to partial charges. They do count, but not as a full cycle charge. Since most devices stop charging a full battery that is plugged in that doesn't count against the total. The amount of charges refers to full cycle charging which should be avoided on a lithium battery to begin with. There are rare exceptions where with specific laptops a manufacturer will recommend a full depletion and full charge so that the OS may properly gauge the battery percentage remaining. This is called calibration and it is the exception, not the rule and still counts against full cycle charges. It should only be done if the OS is incorrectly reading the battery percentage left and only if the manufacturer specifies it.

The other thing to note is that every Lithium battery has a shelf life. It starts from the date of manufacture. This is generally 5 years but can be less in some cases. The amount of full cycle charges is often rated by manufacturers at 500 but in reality many will see up to 1000 before they have serious issues.

 

Leaving a laptop plugged into a power source constantly can overtime kill the battery. Leaving it plugged in might have burnt out the battery in the cause, but I’m not too sure. I had an HP and the battery completely died after 2 years. It would only work if it was plugged into a power source. Unfortunately I had to purchase a new battery and it cost me about $100.

 

Sorry my friend but I think it's time to purchase a bigger battery that can handle energy draining operations. Like streaming video, music, games and downloads.

 

Also, I would definitely recommend going with a good quality battery. I replaced mine with a cheap budget battery and 6 months later it was shot. I had to purchase another battery. I was very annoyed. Stay away from budget batteries at all costs!

 

I agree with this. Batteries are something that you really shouldn't save your money on. I know a friend who bought a Chinese battery from eBay for his laptop, only for it to catch fire in a few months. That laptop ended up having its core components damaged, making the laptop pretty much dead. Just buy the original battery from the manufacturer, there's no way around it!

 

That isn't really how it works. Sure there are after market options for extra batteries and the like with certain makes and models but you don't just go out and buy a bigger battery. Plus if there is a hardware issue that wont resolve it.