DC on a laptop - Uses power faster then the battery can charge?

[TallBill]

I've had a "dead" battery for quite some time so I plopped in a new one today. With the cpu running at 100% the battery slowly lost its charge and now I'm sitting at zero. This is with the AC adaptor plugged in on an aspire 5670. How is that possible? When I get to 0% battery does the laptop slow down then? Is there anyway to fix this?

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

What temps are the battery at? I have left my laptop crunching for days, and it stayed charged, so that shouldn't happen under normal circumstances. But if the battery is operating at non-nominal temps, it *might* happen, although I wouldn't think so.

Bad juice going to the laptop maybe (ie it's having to work harder, reducing efficiency or something)? That is weird.

EDIT: What happens if you take out the battery completely, and have the laptop run just off of AC?

 

[caferace]

Did you charge the battery fully, before you started crunching?

-jim

 

[BlackMountainCow]

Some laptops have software that only charges a battery if it's really empty to increase its life span (I know of some Dell and Toshiba notebooks with that kind of software)

But in any case, when it's loading, it should load, no matter how much stress is on the CPU.

so I plopped in a new one today

A recommended procedure for a new battery is to load it to 100% empty it till the laptop shuts down and repeat that about 5 times. It's like "breaking in" the new battery and by doing so, it achieves its maximum capacity. But even if your battery is brand new, you shouldn't see what you're experiencing. And in the first place: was the battery full to begin with?

When I get to 0% battery does the laptop slow down then

In theory no, as the AC adapter supplies all the power the notebook needs. But in you case, who knows! 😛

 

[uallas5]

I run Rosey on my T43 all the time and I've never had it even come close to not remaining fully charged when plugged in. I'd question whether your AC adapter was up to snuff. Or your new battery is somehow defective.

 

[TallBill]

Well, i put the battery on power saver mode and closed the screen and came back 6 hours, and now its on 100%. I have no interest really in "maximizing" my battery as the laptop is always plugged in. I just hated it going down during almost daily power outages.

 

[caferace]

You should get danger pay for your WU's. 😉

-jim

p.s... I have a Sony Vaio (mobile AMD Athlon XP 2000+) laptop that's been crunching 24/7 for over two years, and the battery is still rockin...

 

[Evadman]

Originally posted by: BlackMountainCow
A recommended procedure for a new battery is to load it to 100% empty it till the laptop shuts down and repeat that about 5 times. It's like "breaking in" the new battery and by doing so, it achieves its maximum capacity.

That is only for the older NiCAD batteries, not NIMH. NIMH batteries are good to go right out of the box, and can be 'randomly' charged to whatever state of charge without damage. Cycling like that will not make the capacity go up or down. It will not hurt the battery either, so you can do it if you want.

 

[bluestrobe]

Might be a bad DC controler on the motherboard.

 

[Ken g6]

Originally posted by: bluestrobe
Might be a bad DC controler on the motherboard.

Yeah, that makes sense; but for a second I was thinking, "What? Bad Distributed Computing controller?" 😛

 

[bluestrobe]

Originally posted by: Ken_g6
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: bluestrobe
Might be a bad DC controler on the motherboard.</end quote></div>
Yeah, that makes sense; but for a second I was thinking, "What? Bad Distributed Computing controller?" 😛

Yea, I should have been more specific after looking back at it.