Laptop batteries are the batteries inside laptops. Using rechargeable batteries is one of the advantages of laptops over desktops. It greatly facilitates the use of laptops in various environments.
The earliest battery introduced was the nickel-cadmium battery (NiCd), but this battery has a "memory effect" and must be discharged before each charge, which is very inconvenient to use. It was soon replaced by the nickel-metal hydride battery (NiMH). NiMH not only has no "memory effect", but also can increase the power per unit weight by 10%.
The function of the battery is to enable the laptop to work in standby mode without AC power. It mainly relies on the battery cells inside to maintain energy. It can also be said that the quality of the battery cells determines the quality of the battery. The standby time of a normal laptop battery should not be less than 2 hours.
The working principle of a laptop battery is generally 2 parallel and 3 series, that is, 2 parallel batteries, and then 3 groups of 2 parallel batteries are connected in series. Sometimes it is also called 6-cell, which means there are 6 batteries. There are also ultra-thin batteries with 4 cells and thick batteries with 8 cells. Their working principles are the same. The more cells, the longer the standby time.
The internal structure of a laptop battery mainly consists of three parts: battery cell, charge and discharge control circuit board, and temperature feedback line. The battery cell is the energy center of the battery. It is responsible for countless charge and discharge operations. The circuit board is used to control the charge and discharge of the battery cell. When the battery cell is low on power, charging is allowed, and when the battery cell is fully charged, charging is cut off.
Since the capacity of laptop batteries is large, they undergo violent chemical reactions during use. Therefore, for safety reasons, the temperature of the battery must be strictly controlled and not too high. The temperature feedback line plays an important role here. When the temperature exceeds a certain level, the temperature feedback line sends the signal to the circuit board and the charging is immediately cut off.
Laptop battery cells mainly use 18650 specifications, that is, the battery cell is 65mm long and 18mm in diameter. This type of battery cell is widely used in laptop batteries. Of course, some laptop batteries use other types of battery cells due to shape and volume constraints.
Batteries used in laptops are mainly divided into three types: 1. Nickel-cadmium batteries, 2. Nickel-metal hydride batteries, and 3. Lithium batteries; they are generally represented as: nickel-cadmium NI-CD, nickel-metal hydride NI-MH, and lithium battery LI.
When buying or replacing laptop batteries, the term "battery cell" may be unfamiliar to many users. First of all, it should be noted that battery cells and batteries are two different concepts. A battery is composed of several small units slightly larger than a thumb, cylindrical, about 6-7 cm high and 18 mm in diameter. The professional name is 18650. Sanyo, Samsung, BAK, and Tiansheng TS are the largest manufacturers. Battery cells are like small batteries, which are connected in series to form the batteries we see.
Next, let's talk about how to judge how many cells a battery has: one way is to unplug the battery and look at the number of its contacts. The number of cells is the number of cells. But this is the method of the "minister". Let's see how "Cao Chong" "weighs the elephant": look at the nominal volt of your battery, such as 14.4v, and then divide it by 3.6 to get 4, which proves that 4 batteries are connected in series. Then look at the capacity of the entire battery, such as 4400mAh, which proves that there are two groups of series batteries mentioned above, because the capacity of those small batteries is 2000-2200mAh or even more, and two groups must be connected together to reach 4400mAh. Based on these two judgments, this battery is 4*2=8 cells. If you want a long battery standby time, you can choose a high-capacity battery cell, 2200mAH-3000mAH can be used.
The laptop battery consists of a shell and a battery cell, and is a lithium-ion battery. Generally speaking, the battery cell refers to the number of cells in the battery, and mAh refers to the capacity of the laptop battery.
The standby time of a laptop battery is mainly determined by the mAh value. Generally speaking, the more cells there are, the larger the mAh value, and the longer the standby time. The life of a laptop battery is mainly measured by the number of charge and discharge times, and qualified products are generally 500-600 times. Therefore, the effective service life of a laptop battery is within 2 years. Expired batteries will age, and the standby time will drop sharply, affecting the mobility of the laptop.
In fact, when the laptop battery is fully charged, it can only be used for about two hours. How to use the laptop battery well and how to extend its use time and life are undoubtedly a problem that bothers many laptop users. There are many ways and skills to use laptop batteries, which requires us to learn and apply more in daily use.
When the laptop is not in use temporarily, in order to save battery energy, we can set the power management plan to put the system into sleep mode after a period of time, but this may take several minutes. Is there any way to put the laptop system into sleep mode immediately?
A simple way to put the laptop system into sleep mode quickly is to turn off the display directly. Just press the display to put the laptop into sleep mode immediately, effectively saving battery energy. When you need to use it again, just turn on the display and the system will automatically return to the state before the operation.
The TFT screen is the component that consumes the most power in the laptop. In order to reduce its power consumption when using the battery, laptop manufacturers have come up with various strategies, but generally speaking, they all use methods such as reducing the screen brightness or even turning off the screen.
In the power management settings of some laptops, the screen brightness can be customized. Most laptops can adjust the screen brightness through specific shortcut keys, and generally have 6 to 8 levels of brightness adjustment.
Desktop computers use AC power, and most people may not pay much attention to the energy saving function of the computer, but for laptops that need to be powered by batteries, the use of energy saving functions should be taken seriously. How to design computer hardware to be more energy-efficient is not a problem that users need to solve. What users can do is to effectively use energy saving options in computer settings.
Energy saving function is a technology used by the CPU, which can achieve the best balance between the performance of the laptop and its battery life. Most new models of laptops support CPU energy saving technology in BIOS, which is turned on by default. If it is not turned on, just enter the BIOS and turn on the support option.
There are two places where users need to adjust the energy saving settings: one is the setting for energy saving mode in the computer's BIOS setup program; the most important thing is that there are many energy saving settings and operations in the operating system. When the microcomputer system is actually executed, the energy saving settings in the Windows system should take precedence over the settings in CMOS.
In the CMOS settings, there is usually a "Power Savings" item, where you can choose from multiple options such as "Maximum Battery Life" and "Maximum Performance". "Maximum Battery Life" is the default energy saving mode setting. There are several energy saving modes for laptops, such as Idle Mode, Standby Mode, and Suspend Mode. The reason why these settings on laptops can adjust power consumption is mainly to shut down some unnecessary system devices in a timely manner after the computer enters the energy saving state. For example, when in the waiting state, the display and hard disk are turned off; after entering the hibernation state, in addition to shutting down the display and hard disk, the contents in the memory can also be saved to the hard disk. The entire computer system basically remains in a shut-down state. Once the computer is activated or restarted, the desktop will be accurately restored to the state before hibernation. The energy saving settings in CMOS are mainly to set the Standby Timeout time when entering Standby Mode from Idle Mode, and to set the Suspend Timeout time when entering Suspend Mode from Standby Mode. Most laptops use Phoenix BIOS. Different BIOS energy-saving settings may be slightly different, so you should read the screen prompts carefully.
For general users, energy-saving management in Windows may be clearer and simpler to operate. In the Windows help file, under the "Manage Hardware and Software" entry, there are two contents related to laptop energy saving: "Manage Energy Consumption" and "Manage Power on Laptops" in "Use Laptops". You should read these contents before making Windows energy-saving settings.
In the "Control Panel" of Windows, click "Power Management" to open the "Power Management Properties" dialog box. In the "Power Management Properties" dialog box, you should set the "Power Scheme" to "Portable/Laptop" and arrange options such as "System Wait", "Turn Off Monitor", and "Turn Off Hard Drive" reasonably. There are some differences in the options that can be manipulated by different computers. New computers and the latest software will have more operable options. Detailed settings should be made according to the functions of the computer itself and the Windows help file.
In addition, if your laptop has a built-in infrared port, disabling it when not in use can also extend the battery life of the laptop.
If the laptop battery standby time is short (less than 30 minutes), it means that the internal cells are aging and need to be replaced. There are several points to note when replacing cells.
Setting the battery power alarm function can prompt users to save information in time. The method is to click to open the "Control Panel", double-click the "Power" option, click the "Alarm" menu bar, the "Battery Low Alarm" column Windows 98 defaults to 10%, and the "Battery Severe Low Alarm" column Windows 98 defaults to 3%. You can modify it appropriately as needed. Click the [Alarm Response] button for both, select "Sound Alarm" and "Display Message", and do not select "Power Level". In this way, when the battery reaches the alarm limit, a warning window will automatically pop up and the buzzer will sound an alarm to prompt the user to save information in time. Finally, click the [OK] button to exit the power management settings.
In addition to the built-in power management function of Windows, there are also many tool programs that can monitor the battery usage status. For example, PowerCenter is a power monitoring tool. It is only 800KB and is a software designed for laptops. In addition to displaying the battery percentage, PowerCenter also displays the actual available time in hours and minutes.
PowerCenter has 3 display modes.
PowerCenter also comes with a control center that can issue up to 6 warning prompts. When the battery drops to a certain level, it will promptly warn the user and save the file being processed. In order not to waste power and CPU resources, PowerCenter automatically detects changes in battery status.
During daily use, keep the contact points at both ends of the laptop battery and the inside of the battery cover clean. If the surface of the laptop battery is very dirty, wipe it gently with a soft, clean dry cloth to avoid power loss. If you plan not to use the battery or the laptop for a long time, you must remove the battery from the laptop, fully discharge it, and then store it in a dry and cool environment. In addition, try to avoid storing batteries with general metal objects (especially magnetic objects) to prevent oxidation or electromagnetic interference.
Use the battery regularly to ensure that it is fully charged. If you need to use up all the power in the battery, the specific method is: in the Power Management dialog box, select the Battery Drain special power mode and set all three Running on Batteries options to Never, so that the laptop will continue to run. Select this mode, then go to the Alarms tab and uncheck the Low Battery and Critical Battery warning checkboxes (this way, the machine will not enter a suspended state when the battery power is low). Next, let the computer run tasks that take up a lot of CPU time, such as automatically running some complex 3D presentation programs, so that the remaining power in the battery can be quickly used up. Of course, don't forget to unplug the AC plug when doing these operations.
Most laptop manufacturers state at the time of delivery that the battery of a newly purchased laptop should be fully charged/discharged three times in the fully discharged state, and the charging time should preferably be more than 14 hours. It is this sentence that has led many laptop users to have a wrong view.
In fact, laptops are activated before leaving the factory. In order to avoid natural loss affecting battery performance, they only carry a small amount of power. Since the laptop battery will automatically stop working after a full charge, there is no need to keep the charging time to 12 hours. In general, a newly purchased laptop only needs to be activated according to the normal charging/discharging method.
For a newly purchased laptop, since it has been charged for the first time during the manufacturer's test, the battery should have 3% power when it is turned on for the first time. At this time, do not use an external power supply immediately, but use up the remaining 3% power until it shuts down, and then charge it with an external power supply. Do not turn on the computer during charging, and the charging time must be more than 12 hours until it is fully charged (for example, unplug the power adapter after it is fully charged, then use up the battery power at once and then charge it again, repeat this three times to activate the maximum potential of the battery.
In daily use, you should try to reduce the number of times you use the battery, because the number of times a laptop battery can be charged and discharged is limited. Each time you charge it, the battery life is reduced. Therefore, if you use an external power supply, you should remove the battery. If you frequently plug and unplug the power supply several times a day and the laptop is equipped with a battery, it will cause greater damage to the battery, because each time you connect the external power supply, it is equivalent to charging the battery once. In addition, laptop batteries have a memory effect. Partial charging (less than 100%) will cause the chemical properties of the battery cells to be inconsistent, causing the battery performance to deteriorate. Therefore, you must use up the power before charging (the power is less than 1%) to avoid memory effects. The best way to restore the battery life is to discharge the battery. Otherwise, the battery will lose its power supply capacity temporarily. 3. Correct discharge method After using the laptop battery for a long time, it is often not fully charged, or even the battery is damaged. For example, the standard battery life can reach 4 hours, but the battery life is less than 40 minutes after charging. You can restore it by discharging the battery. First disable the system screen saver, then enter the "Power Options" property interface, set the "Power Plan" to "High Performance", then click "Change Plan Settings", set all options under "Battery" to "Never", and finally enter the "Advanced Power Settings" to set the battery power alarm prompt, such as the alarm when the power is less than 5%.
At this time, adjust the screen brightness to the highest level, make sure all program windows are closed, and save all previous work data. After confirming that the battery is charged to more than 80%, unplug the power supply and all external devices to discharge. After the discharge is completed, the laptop will automatically shut down. Then plug in the power supply to charge the laptop. This process can be repeated 2 to 3 times. The purpose is to allow the battery to discharge continuously with a small current. This discharge state is impossible to achieve in our daily use. Its effect is basically the same as those dedicated discharge software. If the power management properties do not have an alarm operation function, we need to use the highest intensity manual discharge operation at this time. The method is to enter the BIOS settings to turn off the power management function, that is, set "PowerSwitchMode" to "Off". Because many laptops have a power saving mode, they will automatically shut down when the battery is too low. After saving the settings, restart the laptop. Before entering the system, press the PAUSE key to stay on the Windows screen until the battery is exhausted and shut down. Repeat 3 times and then charge.
When the laptop is powered by battery, we are sometimes processing important documents. If the laptop battery suddenly runs out of power, it is very embarrassing. In serious cases, it may even cause the loss of important data. However, the laptop will provide power management software, which often also provides an alarm function, allowing users to set reminders for low battery and critically low battery. For example, the built-in power manager of ThinkPad laptops. After the user runs the software, he can click "Enable low battery alarm" in the "Global Power Settings" window, and then set the battery power to drop to a certain time period (for example, 10%). When the battery life is only 10%, the system will sound an alarm to remind the user to save the data as soon as possible to prevent the laptop from suddenly losing power due to running out of power, causing the unsaved work to be wasted.
Laptop batteries are consumable accessories. The more they are used and discharged, the shorter their battery life will be. Therefore, for business users, daily maintenance of laptop batteries is also very important. ThinkPad Power Manager provides battery data viewing and battery maintenance functions. In the "Battery Information" window, the battery health status, voltage, temperature, remaining capacity, remaining time, charge times and other information will be displayed here, so that users can perform daily maintenance reasonably. For example, if the health status is displayed in red, it means that the battery life is about to expire, please replace the battery in time, while yellow means that the battery is partially aged and users should pay attention. Special mention should be made of the number of charging times. For convenience, many users sometimes connect the power adapter to use the battery when it is installed. Each time the AC power is plugged in, the battery will be automatically charged. The more this happens, the more times the battery is charged, which seriously reduces the battery life. In order to facilitate users to charge and discharge the battery, the software provides a battery charge and discharge limit function. The method is to click the "Battery Maintenance" button, and then select "Customize" under "Charging Valve". At this time, you can set when to charge and discharge the battery. For example, if you don't want to remove the battery because of the trouble, you can set "Start charging when below the following value" to below 10%. In this way, the battery will not be charged even if the AC power is connected.
After the laptop battery has been used for a long time, it often cannot be fully charged, and even shows that the battery is damaged. The specific manifestation is that the internal resistance becomes larger, and the voltage at both ends rises faster during charging. In this way, it is easy for the charging control circuit to determine that it is full, and the capacity naturally decreases. Because the internal resistance of the battery is relatively large, the voltage drops greatly and quickly during discharge, so the system can easily mistakenly think that the voltage is insufficient and the power is insufficient. When it is found that the battery working time is relatively short, appropriate measures should be taken.
Most brand laptops have battery refresh programs, which we can use to repair the battery. For example: an IBM Thinkpad390/262650 laptop computer is equipped with a nickel-metal hydride (Ni-Mh) battery. Due to improper charging and discharging, the battery discharge time is getting shorter and shorter, leaving less than 5 minutes. If you carry a laptop computer to work outside, it is very inconvenient. Is there any way to restore the battery discharge time? For the above situation, we can use the battery refresh program launched by IBM to refresh the battery and restore its discharge time. The specific method is as follows.
In addition, many lithium battery failures are caused by the failure of a certain cell in the battery pack. This phenomenon cannot be avoided. Because the properties of each battery cell cannot be completely consistent, some of the poorer quality ones begin to age after a long time of use, which destroys the overall (after series) discharge curve. Readers who are interested and capable can try to open the battery pack. With the help of a multimeter, you can quickly find the damaged cell (abnormal voltage). If conditions permit, replace it with a qualified product according to the corresponding parameters of the cell.
The number of times the battery is charged and discharged is directly related to its life. Every time it is charged, the battery is one step closer to retirement. It is recommended that you use an external power supply as much as possible.
Some users often plug and unplug the power supply several times a day, and the laptop is equipped with a battery. Doing so will cause greater damage to the battery. Because each time the external power supply is connected is equivalent to charging the battery once, the battery will naturally shorten its life (especially for nickel-metal hydride and nickel-cadmium batteries, this does not exist for lithium batteries).
During daily use, avoid exposure to sunlight, moisture, chemical liquid corrosion, and avoid contact between battery contacts and metal objects.
How should laptop batteries be maintained? In fact, for the current wide variety of portable computers, in addition to the quality problems of laptop batteries themselves that may cause explosions, improper use by users can also easily cause safety accidents caused by batteries. Some computer experts suggest that consumers should try to avoid the following five misconceptions.
Strategy: Excessive charging and discharging of lithium batteries will rapidly reduce the activity of the battery. Therefore, during use, there is no need to deliberately charge it to 100%. The battery will automatically shut down when it is exhausted. Generally, it should be charged when it is about 10% charged and stopped when it is about 98%. This will not cause damage to the battery.
Strategy: This can easily cause the battery to overheat and catch fire, so it is necessary to avoid placing the computer on a sofa, bed, or other place where heat is not easily dissipated.
Strategy: In fact, the problem of overcharging does not exist for a well-designed lithium battery because the lithium battery has a protection circuit. When the charging indicator light goes out, it means that it is not charging. However, lithium batteries age faster in overheated environments. Therefore, if you don't use the battery often in summer, you should remove it to prevent damage caused by overheating.
Strategy: In addition to reducing the battery life, using AC power and batteries at the same time will also cause the machine to overheat, which can easily damage other components. The simplest way is to cut off the external power supply immediately after it is fully charged.
Strategy: The lithium battery of the laptop needs to be activated regularly. Whether it is fully charged or discharged, it is incorrect. If it is stored for too long after being discharged, the battery will lose its activity; if it is stored for too long after being fully charged, it will bring safety hazards. The appropriate treatment method is to discharge it by about 30% or 40% for storage.
The new laptop mentioned here refers to an unopened laptop, and its battery should also be brand new. Similar to a new mobile phone battery, a new laptop battery also has floating electricity, which is generally 5% to 10% of the total battery capacity. Therefore, when unpacking a new laptop, if the system reports that the battery is low, it means that this laptop has basically not been unpacked and used. While users are assured, they must remember to specify the battery warranty in the purchase contract.
Generally speaking, the price of laptop batteries is quite high, and even accounts for about 15% of the overall selling price of some laptops. Therefore, when purchasing a second spare battery for your laptop, you should pay attention to the following points.
To put it simply, "Measurement Method A" is to copy the VCD file to the hard disk, set the system volume to the lowest, and play it at a screen size of 320×240. The brightness of the display is to see the picture clearly, and measure the continuous playback time. "Measurement Method B" is to turn off all power saving options on the system, adjust the brightness of the display to a level that is basically visible, and measure the pure standby time. If consumers have enough time when purchasing a laptop battery, they may want to use this method to test the newly purchased laptop battery. Although the test time will be longer, the quality of the battery will be exposed once it is tested. If the measured time is not much different from the nominal time, this is basically a battery that can be purchased with confidence.
When purchasing a second-hand laptop battery, the main consideration is the quality, such as whether the product nameplate is clear and the degree of electrode wear. If the nameplate is unclear and the electrode is severely worn, this type of battery must have a long service life and consumers should not consider it. In addition, when purchasing, the battery performance must be fully tested to ensure that the battery purchased does not have any hidden dangers of failure. Although the price is relatively low, there is a certain element of luck in it, so it is recommended that unless the economy is particularly tight, you should still choose a new battery.
Currently, laptop batteries are mainly divided into 3-cell, 4-cell, 6-cell, 8-cell, 9-cell, 12-cell, etc. In simple terms, a 4-cell battery can last for 2 hours, a 6-cell battery can last for 3 hours, and so on. Of course, the larger the number of cells, the longer the battery life, and of course the higher the price, but the stability will be worse than that of batteries with fewer cells. Ordinary home users are recommended to use the number of cells that comes standard with their computers, such as 3-cell and 4-cell, because they are mainly used at home and have a stable power supply. Ordinary office users are recommended to use 6-cell and 8-cell batteries, because the standby time is relatively long, making your office more convenient. If you have higher requirements for mobile office work, you can consider 9-cell and 12-cell batteries. These batteries are too heavy to carry and are not as stable as 6-cell and 8-cell batteries. In fact, 6-cell and 8-cell batteries are enough, because 6-cell and 8-cell batteries can last for more than 3 hours in your normal office use, but it is another matter if you play games.
First, let me introduce the 18650 battery used in laptops. The capacity is usually 2200mAh (milliampere-hour), which can be interpreted as: powered by 3.7V voltage and 2200mA (milliampere) current, it can be used for 1 hour. The higher specification capacity is 2400mAh and 2600mAh (mostly Sanyo batteries, and most Sony laptops use 2600mAh specifications).
The following takes the common 3.7V/2200mAh battery as an example.
The final marked parameters of the four-cell battery pack are: 14.8V/2200mAh. 14.8V=3.7V*4, the output current remains unchanged at 2200mAh when connected in series.
Two in series and two in parallel means that the four cells are divided into two groups, two in series and then in parallel, and the final marked parameters of the battery pack are: 7.4V/4400mAh. 7.4V=3.7V×2, the output current is 4400mAh=2200mAh×2.
Most of the medium-sized notebooks on the market (12.1 inches, 13.3 inches, etc.) are battery packs of this specification.
Some high-spec notebooks use six-cell batteries.
Of course, there are batteries with more than six cells, such as nine-cell batteries.
After reading so much, friends who buy laptops may ask, how to check the battery capacity? The four-cell battery in series (14.8V/2200mAh) and the two-cell battery in series and two-parallel (7.4V/4400mAh) are the same, why is one written as 2200 and the other as 4400?
Here we have to introduce a concept. Everyone knows that the power consumption of home appliances is calculated in "degrees", 1 degree = 1000Wh (watt-hours). However, the battery capacity of laptops is relatively small, and it is obviously unreasonable to measure it in "degrees", so the international standard is now "Wh" (watt-hour, i.e. one thousandth of a degree).
Friends who have studied physics know that W (watt, power unit) = V (volt, voltage unit) × A (ampere, current unit), so you can calculate that the capacity of 18650 battery is 3.7V × 2200mAh = 8.14Wh, so you know that the capacity of a three-cell battery is 8.14 × 3 = 24.42Wh, the capacity of a four-cell battery is 8.14 × 4 = 32.56Wh, and the capacity of a six-cell battery is 8.14 × 6 = 48.84Wh.
And these data are exactly equal to the product of the marked parameters of the battery pack. Taking the six-cell as an example, 48.84Wh = 11.1V × 4400mAh.
Seeing this, everyone should know how to read the battery capacity of a laptop computer, not by looking at the mAh at the back, but by calculating the Wh.
Now, major laptop manufacturers are clearly marking the battery capacity Wh on the battery pack in accordance with aviation regulations.
The steps to calibrate the battery are as follows:
This problem mainly occurs due to the power management mode setting problem. The user may set it to the longest battery life mode. Since the longest battery life mode is to protect the battery and extend the battery life, it will automatically cut off the battery charging when the battery charging power reaches a certain value to protect the battery.
If this article still doesn't help your laptop battery, you can buy a new battery at hp-battery.com
If you want to learn more about batteries, please visit: https://www.hp-battery.com/faq.html
