Probably one of the most random threads on g35driver of canadian section.

I bought my Sony Vaio TX-series laptop a couple years ago. In the beginning, on full power and full screen brightness, the laptop generally lasts me 6 hours of no charge. But recently it has gone down to less than 4 hours on battery save mode (still full brightness, but lower processor speed). Is there certain ways to extend the life of battery charge?

I'm not sure what I've done wrong, I've taken precautions as to not kill the battery such as:

1. Taking battery out when plugging into outlet if battery has not been drained.
2. Always draining to 0% then hibernate mode before charging.
3. Unplugging the laptop immediately as it reaches 100% to prevent overcharging.

Why is my battery life constantly going down?

It's Lithium-Ion battery btw. 7.4V and 7800maH.

 

Age and cycles - not really much you can do. I run a Compaq laptop and it's down to less than 2 hours per charge, less if I use wireless G or bluetooth.

When cars are running Li ion batteries we'll be having the same discussion on battery life, mark my words.

 

+1.. it's a battery.. it will go to crap. just buy a new battery if it really gets bad.

 

Yea what they said. Batteries eventually lose their charge capacities. Sometimes draining it completely to 0% and then fully charging it while its off helps, but that's not a guarantee. If it was me I would just buy a new battery and use this one as a backup.

 

Why would you take out the battery when plugged in? ..it provides backup power.
Do you use a UPS on the power source?

 

Even though they claim to have overcharge protection, if you always leave the battery on when it's plugged in you will notice the battery life will deteriorate quite rapidly. I'm lazy and my battery is always on my notebook, it used to last about 4 hours and now I get less than 1 hour from a full charge.

 

^+1

I dont believe overcharge protection. I still see the effects of it, it's just not as dramatic as before.

What's UPS? I keep thinking the brown **** that charges 200% duties on parts or something

 

UPS is an Uninterrupted Power Supply which isn't really used that often for laptops since it would just run off the battery (if inserted) when the power goes out. It's main use would be to allow uninterrupted power in the case of a power outage to your house/building. Especially useful if you have servers or want to have enough time to gracefully shutdown your equipment when there's no electricity.

 

Yeah, that's the downside....
For me I change hardware often so it's a non-issue.
I need the backup, a corrupt file due to power loss could be very expensive.

 

In your case the trade off sounds like it is well worth the cost.

 

Disagree. Smart battery chargers are extremely good these days - my company made a couple for our systems and their performance is excellent. I wouldn't hesitate to leave the battery in place when running on mains.