Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (
More info?)
"Tiny Tim" <_tim_dodd@hotmail.com> wrote:
>"Jim Driscoll" <jdriscoll@trentu.ca> wrote
>> Many thanks--for now I think that I will use the machine as a compact
>> desktop and put off buying the incredibly expensive battery.
>As an Inspiron 8000 owner myself, I think there is a design fault in the
>charging mechanism that shags the battery. My machine is 3.5 years old and
>is virtually permanently connected to the mains. On the rare occasion that I
>use battery power the machine first tells me I have ~2.5 hours of use but
>this soon collapses and the power is drained in about 20-30 minutes. It has
>been like this for the last 2 years. In the first 10 minutes on battery the
>charge drops from 100% to 90%. In the next 10 minutes it drops from 90% to
>10%!!! and then it slows down to give me maybe another 5 minutes before it
>dies. Often the discharge is so quick at the end that the machine does not
>have time to complete a "standby" shutdown. There is much talk on the Dell
>Talk forums about this.
>
>In contrast my 6 year old Inspiron 7000 will still run for 2+ hours on its
>original battery and that has been treated in exactly the same way in terms
>of charging patterns of usage.
>
>IMHO you would do well not to buy another battery for the i8000 as that will
>get shagged too. Just leave the old one in as a 2 minute USP in the event of
>a mains power supply glitch, like the lead getting kicked out accidentally.
The rechargeable lithium-ion batteries currently being used in
laptops and other portable electronic devices are not your old
ni-cads and don't operate like them. It basically has an ~2 year
life, whatever your usage, before it stops taking a full charge.
If you google in this group on my posting name and the topic
"laptop", "battery"/"batteries", etc., you should find a post of
mine from several months ago that contained a link to a
Washington Post article that fully discussed this issue. Alas,
at this late date, it would cost you $2.95 to access the article.
But I did put more info from the article in my posts then, so the
google won't be a total loss.
Basically, if your computers are most often operated from wall
power, and a 30-minute charge is suitable for when you aren't,
you're OK. If not, you'll have to resign yourself to a new
battery every couple of years.
[I should note that I haven't ever owned a laptop. It is just
that the topic of laptop battery life was active in this
newsgroup on the Sunday the article appeared in the Post's
regular weekly computer/technology section of the Sunday Business
Section. So I made a post based on the info in that article and
included the link. Fine then, since the article had just
appeared. However, the Post charges $2.95 for any online
archived article more than 2-weeks old.]
--
OJ III
[Email to Yahoo address may be burned before reading.
Lower and crunch the sig and you'll net me at comcast.]
LRcd.81021$vO1.456007@nnrp1.uunet.ca...
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