Battery charged very quickly on first use - OK?

[Yosser_UK]

Hello. After opening the box and looking in the Manuel it doesn't say anything about the first charge. In my case the aspire charged in 20 minutes. Is this right? It was amber then changed to green very quickly. After about an hour of using it (and charging too) Linpus is saying the charge is at 100%. How long should I keep it on charge then now? 2 hours or overnight?

I've read on this forum some people say leave it over night on first charge, then full discharge the battery and do this a few times.

What's the correct way?

 

[silsor]

I believe that the battery is shipped with a partial charge, which would be why it charged so fast the first time. Li-ion batteries like the one in the Aspire One can lose their charge capacity if they are stored long-term with any charge over about 60%, so it would not make sense to ship it with a 100% charge. Li-ion batteries can also be permanently disabled by running them too low (don't worry about doing this, the circuitry won't allow it) so it would not make sense either to ship it with no charge, as the charge could slowly deplete in a warehouse somewhere leaving you with a disabled battery.

To make this into a general tip post:
Li-ion batteries have no "memory effect", so it is not necessary to drain them to 0% and charge them back up to 100%.
Li-ion batteries lose their capacity very slowly over time, even if you don't use them. There is nothing you can do about this, except the following: If you ever need to store a lithium ion batterry for a long period of time, get it to between 40%-60% charge and put it in a refrigerator.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion

 

[ipearl]

Yup it comes precharged.
All the AO i recieved and ordered for friends or relatives seem to be precharged before I changed out the OS and did modifications to them. I never had to charge before being able to start it up.

 

[Yosser_UK]

OK thanks for that. I left it on charge over night just to be sure, doubt it it'll do any harm. The manual says to completely discharge fully and recharge the battery a few times when you first get it. I take it this is wrong?

 

[silsor]

If the manual says to do it, then you probably should, they must know something that Wikipedia doesn't.

 

[ipearl]

Yeah use it a few times and let the Battery die.
Basicly it will leave you with like 1-3% of juice left over.
The Acer will shut down before it will let you get to 0%.
Then Fully charge it, do that few times its basicly to calibrate the Gauge.

 

[Yosser_UK]

Cool thanks.

 

[Yosser_UK]

Yeah use it a few times and let the Battery die.
Basicly it will leave you with like 1-3% of juice left over.
The Acer will shut down before it will let you get to 0%.
Then Fully charge it, do that few times its basicly to calibrate the Gauge.

My battery gauge is acting a bit weird and I don't think I'm getting 2 hours even out of the ONE. I've only charged and discharged it fully once mind. Should I disable the 'shut down at 10%' in the power management window let the battery fully discharge? The first time I let it run down to the ONE shut down but obviously the power managment had shut it down at 10%.

What do you think?

 

[silsor]

Try turning off the automatic shutdown in the operating system and let the computer turn itself off in hardware once the battery runs out. I think the point of running it until empty is to properly calibrate the charge measurement. You can't hurt your computer by doing this.

 

[Forone]

My battery gauge is acting a bit weird and I don't think I'm getting 2 hours even out of the ONE. I've only charged and discharged it fully once mind. Should I disable the 'shut down at 10%' in the power management window let the battery fully discharge? The first time I let it run down to the ONE shut down but obviously the power managment had shut it down at 10%.

What do you think?

Interestingly, full discharge doesn't help the Li battery, but it does recalibrate the battery gauge to be more accurate. Here's an explanation:

http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm