Dead laptop batteries?

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Hello,

When a laptop battery seems to be dying, is it poss. to revive it somehow or does it have to be thrown away?

TIA.

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Laptop batteries generally last 1-2 years and then need to be properly disposed. Check with your local recycling authorities on how to do that.

I suppose a chemical engineer could figure out a way to revive them, but I wouldn’t want to have some science experiment sitting on my lap. Bad place for a fire or explosion.

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Laptop batteries generally last 1-2 years and then need to be properly disposed. Check with your local recycling authorities on how to do that.

I suppose a chemical engineer could figure out a way to revive them, but I wouldn’t want to have some science experiment sitting on my lap. Bad place for a fire or explosion.

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I’ll second Jefferson. I used to “shock” rechargeable batteries for my 1:10 scale RC cars, simply because I was poor and that stuff was really expensive – and I needed a lot of batteries. It did not always work, and even then it was just a stop gap measure until I could afford a proper replacement.

Science experiment sitting in your lap…. Yes, it is time for a new one!

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We had a fancy HP Notebook (of some fashion) in the office not too long ago, and it was running a battery re-conditioning program that was downloaded from the HP Website.

I can’t help anymore beyond that I’m affraid… as I don’t know the model of the notebook, or the battery for that matter.

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We had a fancy HP Notebook (of some fashion) in the office not too long ago, and it was running a battery re-conditioning program that was downloaded from the HP Website.

I can’t help anymore beyond that I’m affraid… as I don’t know the model of the notebook, or the battery for that matter.

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It depends on the type of rechargeable battery. The older Ni-Cad’s had a bad habit of developing “low voltage memory” That is, you could try to recharge them, but they would only charge up to the low point, never to a full charge. This was mostly due to recharging them too often, when the voltage drain was only a small amount of the total. The ideal way to recharge is to wait until they are down to a greater degree and then recharge. I used to recommend that most Ni-Cads be run almost completely down and then given a complete fresh charge. This will extend the useful life of the battery pack for a significant time.
“Shocking or Blasting” the battery with a higher voltage for just a second or two ( no longer ) would generally remove the low voltage memory.
The newer Lithium or oxide batteries do not exhibit this characteristic, so shocking them doesn’t do much good. So if the pack is a fairly new type then replacement is the answer.

Bob

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Thanks.

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Thanks.

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It depends on the type of rechargeable battery. The older Ni-Cad’s had a bad habit of developing “low voltage memory” That is, you could try to recharge them, but they would only charge up to the low point, never to a full charge. This was mostly due to recharging them too often, when the voltage drain was only a small amount of the total. The ideal way to recharge is to wait until they are down to a greater degree and then recharge. I used to recommend that most Ni-Cads be run almost completely down and then given a complete fresh charge. This will extend the useful life of the battery pack for a significant time.
“Shocking or Blasting” the battery with a higher voltage for just a second or two ( no longer ) would generally remove the low voltage memory.
The newer Lithium or oxide batteries do not exhibit this characteristic, so shocking them doesn’t do much good. So if the pack is a fairly new type then replacement is the answer.

Bob

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I’ll second Jefferson. I used to “shock” rechargeable batteries for my 1:10 scale RC cars, simply because I was poor and that stuff was really expensive – and I needed a lot of batteries. It did not always work, and even then it was just a stop gap measure until I could afford a proper replacement.

Science experiment sitting in your lap…. Yes, it is time for a new one!

Reply | Quote