My New Laptop Battery

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I just received a new PA33838U-1BRS (?12 cell I think) battery I
bought from batterydepot.com and I am surprised that it has so short a
life in my Toshiba A75-S209 laptop.

I should say for the record that the battery arrived fully discharged,
dead as could be. That surprised me too.

But then I know nothing about Lithium ION batteries, so I am not sure
what to expect. I have read the info at
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries

As I watch Toshiba's Power Meter, with the desktop displayed, but the
laptop sitting idle otherwise, the capacity has decreased from 97% to
50%. That says to me that I will get only two hours out of a full
battery charge. Is that normal, good, bad, or what? I also wonder
why an overnight full charge (laptop off) only charged the battery to
98%.

So - I have to ask. Is something wrong? What is normal?

Thank you
 
In
aaaaa said:
I just received a new PA33838U-1BRS (?12 cell I think)
battery I bought from batterydepot.com and I am surprised
that it has so short a life in my Toshiba A75-S209 laptop.

I should say for the record that the battery arrived fully
discharged, dead as could be. That surprised me too.

But then I know nothing about Lithium ION batteries, so I
am not sure what to expect. I have read the info at
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries

As I watch Toshiba's Power Meter, with the desktop
displayed, but the laptop sitting idle otherwise, the
capacity has decreased from 97% to 50%. That says to me
that I will get only two hours out of a full battery
charge. Is that normal, good, bad, or what? I also wonder
why an overnight full charge (laptop off) only charged the
battery to 98%.

So - I have to ask. Is something wrong? What is normal?

Thank you
Click to expand...

Sounds "normal" to me. I don't think the battery should have been dead, but
I'm not certain. How did you determine it was "dead"?

The 98% might have been "normal" too as their hold-voltage is slightly less
than the max voltage of other types of batteries.

Here are some links that may be helpful: Lithium-ion is different from other
batteries as you'll see:

http://batteryuniversity.com/index.php/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery

the latest lithium ion battery technology which has no memory problems, so
there is no need to fully discharge them light before use.
The above caught my eye and seems to indicate that shipping the batteries
"dead" might be OK.

Luck,

Twayne`
 
aaaaa said:
I just received a new PA33838U-1BRS (?12 cell I think) battery I
bought from batterydepot.com and I am surprised that it has so short a
life in my Toshiba A75-S209 laptop.

I should say for the record that the battery arrived fully discharged,
dead as could be. That surprised me too.

But then I know nothing about Lithium ION batteries, so I am not sure
what to expect. I have read the info at
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries

As I watch Toshiba's Power Meter, with the desktop displayed, but the
laptop sitting idle otherwise, the capacity has decreased from 97% to
50%. That says to me that I will get only two hours out of a full
battery charge. Is that normal, good, bad, or what? I also wonder
why an overnight full charge (laptop off) only charged the battery to
98%.

So - I have to ask. Is something wrong? What is normal?

Thank you
Click to expand...

If the battery is new, and doesn't even provide the length of runtime the
old battery does, then there is a) either something wrong with the new
battery, or b) it's nowhere near the mAh rating of the old one. In the case
of 'a', send it back; in the case of 'b', you're probably SOL unless battery
depot will strike a deal with you.

Note: every new battery that I have ever had say to charge it at least
overnight before running on it.
 
SC said:
If the battery is new, and doesn't even provide the length of runtime
the old battery does, then there is a) either something wrong with the
new battery, or b) it's nowhere near the mAh rating of the old one. In
the case of 'a', send it back; in the case of 'b', you're probably SOL
unless battery depot will strike a deal with you.

Note: every new battery that I have ever had say to charge it at least
overnight before running on it.
Click to expand...

You can't expect anything until you charge it fully, run it down till it
shuts off,
recharge it without interruption. That's supposed to calibrate the battery
meter, but sometimes it takes more cycles. Some vendors supply an app
for this.
Read the manual.
The only real measure of how long it will run is to time how long it
runs. The worse the battery, the less accurate the prediction.
The most annoying characteristic is that for bad batteries, the meter
initially drops slowly, then the system abruptly shuts off.

Another annoying issue is the AGE of the battery. Don't know how old your
laptop is, but I use laptops from 2005. Any random "new" battery I buy
may have been sitting in a container in the sun in Arizona for
5 years. They can have significant age issues even though they've
never been used.
 
aaaaa said:
I just received a new PA33838U-1BRS (?12 cell I think) battery I
bought from batterydepot.com and I am surprised that it has so short a
life in my Toshiba A75-S209 laptop.

I should say for the record that the battery arrived fully discharged,
dead as could be. That surprised me too.

But then I know nothing about Lithium ION batteries, so I am not sure
what to expect. I have read the info at
http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries

As I watch Toshiba's Power Meter, with the desktop displayed, but the
laptop sitting idle otherwise, the capacity has decreased from 97% to
50%. That says to me that I will get only two hours out of a full
battery charge. Is that normal, good, bad, or what? I also wonder
why an overnight full charge (laptop off) only charged the battery to
98%.

So - I have to ask. Is something wrong? What is normal?

Thank you
Click to expand...

Those particular kind of batteries, are like "tomatoes".
You have to buy them "fresh". Check to see if there is a
manufacture date on the battery, to get some idea how
old the stock is. It might be as old as the original
battery for example.

The battery ages, even in storage. They only last a limited period
of time. In fact, it probably doesn't matter how many times you
charge and discharge that battery, as it'll wear out on a time
basis anyway. When you buy one, you might as well use it.
It can't be preserved in any practical way. So buying two
of them, on the premise you'll use them serially, is a mistake
(i.e. start using the second one, when the first wears out, the
second one won't have much life left in it).

The Battery University may claim it lasts the longest in storage,
at 40% charge. If you received your new battery completely flat,
the charger circuit may have refused to charge it. It may have had
some residual voltage on it, and not been completely flat (zero
volts).

You'd need to search for battery life reports for your model
of laptops, under identical conditions. If you Google and
someone has said in the past "my Toshiba XYZ will run
for 3 hours idle in the desktop", that would give you a
metric for comparison. Otherwise, it's pretty hard for
someone who doesn't own such a laptop, to judge.

My new laptop, lasts maybe 2.5 hours on battery. It has a 25W
processor, a single core, so should be easy on the battery.
There are no fancy graphics, only the GPU in the Northbridge.
And my battery is small. It's not an extended runtime battery.

Some other kinds of (gutless) portable computing products,
get ten hours off a single charge. That's sort of the upper
range for portable equipment. A "desktop replacement" laptop,
one with fancy gaming graphics chip, might only get 30 minutes
from battery, due to the heavy electrical load. Such computers
are not really intended for "off tether" operation - they're
really intended to be operated from the mains at all times.
The battery in that case, functions more as a UPS, providing
power to cover short outages if they occur. You couldn't
really do very much, with a 30 minute battery life (like
watch a DVD movie on the plane).

Paul
 
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