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    #1

    Battery calibration

    How do I calibrate a laptop battery?

    My Toshiba Tecra M2 battery meter seems to be retarded for some reason... when I first got it... for the first few days... the battery would like about 1.15 hours-ish...

    Now it lasts for about 30 minutes, sometimes 45 minutes and sometimes 20!

    The battery is a genuine Toshiba one so I know it can't pull off that fake Chinese battery syndrome.


    Thanks.
    Don't find love, let love find you. That's why its called falling in love, because you don't force yourself to fall, you just fall. - Anonymous
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    #2
    Re: Battery calibration

    i remember the release version of win7 did that!

    try a different o.s. - use a live-disk if you need to.

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      #3
      Re: Battery calibration

      I'm running XP Pro SP3 though.
      Don't find love, let love find you. That's why its called falling in love, because you don't force yourself to fall, you just fall. - Anonymous

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        #4
        Re: Battery calibration

        i've had the same problem before. also on a genuine toshiba battery (for my Satellite Pro 4600 PIII 1GHz).
        one of the cells inside the pack was dying, causing the controller to go slightly insane (all other cells were OK apart from lower capacity due to the age).

        sometimes i got almost the full remaining 1h 40mins out of it, sometimes 10, 30, 60min and a couple times it barely managed 3 mins or died instantly (matter of seconds till it turned off without any warning).. totally random..

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          #5
          Re: Battery calibration

          if you can calibrate it, it is usually by a program. I once had a compaq that had the software on it for doing the calibration, but it usually comes from the main company. I dont believe that i have ever seen a calibration program on the Toshiba's, but i could be wrong. check the programs that come installed on the PC or check the bios. if there is one, it should be in one of those 2 places. also, if one of the cells in the battery pack is dying, there is nothing you can do but either take the battery pack apart and replace that cell or replace the whole battery pack. calibration will do nothing to fix a dead or going dead cell in the battery pack.

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            #6
            Re: Battery calibration

            how would you know which cell is dead anyway?
            Don't find love, let love find you. That's why its called falling in love, because you don't force yourself to fall, you just fall. - Anonymous

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              #7
              Re: Battery calibration

              as far as i know, take the battery apart and do a test on each battery. the dead or bad cell will probably have a variation in voltage vs the good ones or will just bomb out on the test all together. It may just read dead from the start even though the battery is fully charged.

              when you open up the casing on the battery pack, there will be multiple cells in it. basically it will look like 8 or 10 or how ever many batteries in there all connected together.. in a sequence just kinda like you get when you use a battery operated fan or light or remotes.. etc..

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                #8
                Re: Battery calibration

                i noticed that calibration sometimes fails to balance the cells properly.
                it does readjust the battery gauge, but the voltage drift between cells that happens over time (esp. when the pack hasn't been used for a long while) remains.

                with a li-ion charger that has a precise shut-off, i managed to revive the auxiliary multi-bay pack for my Evo laptop. 15 min. before, 70min after.
                "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." - H.L. Mencken

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                  #9
                  Re: Battery calibration

                  i once had one of those "intelligent" computer controlled chargers that i borrowed from a friend.
                  with that thing, i managed to revive multiple laptop battery packs by putting the single cells in there and let the charger do its "revive/refresh" program..

                  out of 25 or so cells only 3 failed to come back to life.. but those 3 came from 3 different battery packs.. and all of them had a runtime of less than 10mins with those bad cells in it.

                  i sacrificed one battery pack to fix up the others. runtime of the fixed/revived packs is well over 1hour now.. some of them almost had the full runtime as if they were almost brand new o.O

                  seems like if 1 cell is dying or dead already, the whole controller gets out of whack.. probably because the cells are wired up in pairs in most of the packs i've seen..
                  ([2 in parallel] -> [2 in parallel] -> [2 in parallel] -> [2 in parallel] -> controller .. 1 dead cell and the controller f*cks up..)

                  Comment

                    #10
                    Re: Battery calibration

                    Originally posted by stevo1210
                    how would you know which cell is dead anyway?
                    Measure each cell individually with an ESR meter.

                    Batteries are very similar to caps in that regard as they age their ESR goes up.

                    One cell with an ESR much higher than the others indicates a bad cell.
                    Last edited by Krankshaft; 06-27-2010, 02:58 PM.
                    Elements of the past and the future combining to make something not quite as good as either.

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                      #11
                      Re: Battery calibration

                      dead cells usually fall below 3V.
                      anything between 3.0 and 3.6 is a grey zone.
                      "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." - H.L. Mencken

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