Heal a Sick Battery

Myth: You can rejuvenate a worn-out battery.

This isn’t the case, strictly speaking. You can’t make degraded lithium hold more electrons than it does now. But if the battery is running out unexpectedly fast, or if your laptop is having trouble figuring out how much power it has lef, you may be able to fix the battery’s “gas gauge” so that it gives you a more accurate reading. If you suspect that the battery can’t determine whether it’s charged or not, run it through a couple of cycles: Drain it, recharge it to 100 percent, and then repeat. How do you drain the battery? Don’t bother with the settings described in “Don’t Run It Down” on the previous page. Altering them isn’t safe (since you might forget to change them back), they may not be getting an accurate reading, and they quite possibly won’t let you set the critical battery level to 0 percent. (If they did, Windows would likely crash.)

Instead, unplug the AC power and keep your laptop running (you can work on it if you like) until it automatically hibernates. Ten reboot the PC and go directly to the system setup program. I can’t tell you how to find your way there; each computer is different. Turn on the PC and look for a message that says something like ‘Press the X key for setup.’ Immediately press the designated key. Getting the timing right may take a couple of tries. If the PC doesn’t have enough power to boot, plug in AC until you’re at the setup program, and then unplug it. Leave the notebook on until it shuts off. This can take some time (45 minutes on my laptop); setup uses a lot less power than Windows does. Once the laptop is off, plug in the AC power, and then wait a few hours before rebooting to Windows and confirming that you have a full recharge. Repeat the process once or twice. With some luck and proper care, your battery will still be useful when you’re looking for a new laptop.

Source of Information : PC World July 2010

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