[ale] laptop diagnostics

[Lightner, Jeff]

Dell has explicit instructions for the D630 saying one should
periodically do the depletion/decharging.   In fact I suspect the
battery finally went kaput because I hadn't done that ever (for more
than a year or so) until the battery started acting up a few months
back.  Doing it then got it going again for a few months.   

When it finally died there was no warning - just saw the battery light
flashing amber on powering it up one day and from that point it was
clear it was dead.  Leaving it to decharge wouldn't work because as soon
as I removed the brick it powered off the laptop.  Leaving it charging
for hours didn't help either with the laptop powered up or powered down.

-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of
Calvin Harrigan
Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2011 1:46 PM
To: ale at pcartwright.com; Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [ale] laptop diagnostics

On 1/20/2011 1:26 PM, Paul Cartwright wrote:
> On 01/20/2011 11:28 AM, Jim Kinney wrote:
>> Hmm. I've seen laptops (forget brands) that wouldn't run at all off
>> power brick if the battery was totally dead and nonchargeable.
Symptoms
>> are similar to those described here. Try putting battery in the
fridge
>> for a few hours then letting it sit in the laptop with the power
cable
>> attached but system off for a hour to maybe get a trickle of a
charge.
>> If it then boot, get a new battery. For a while, Batteries Plus would
>> rebuild battery packs if you would remove the plastic case.
>
> I have a 4-year-old Dell XPS laptop, and I run it without the
battery..
> I think I read somewhere that if you run it plugged into A/C and have
> the battery in all the time, that it will forget its memory..
>
>
>

I think that was for nickel-cadmium cells, newer lithium based batteries

actually don't like being fully depleted.
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