[TriLUG] Linux laptop battery

[M. Mueller (bhu5nji)]

On Wednesday 06 February 2002 03:27 am, you wrote:
 To respond to your question "what killed the battery?",

Actually, the battery is working now.  I haven't exhausted it yet since the 
ACPI in my BIOS gives no useful charge per centage info to the APM software 
in my distro.  I am getting close to an hour without failure now, and that's 
running at full consumption rate.  ACPI is a newer power management system 
that the Open Source community is addressing, but admit is in alpha stages.

I think the battery rejuvenation techniques described on this list must have 
worked.

I have a NiMH battery for my video camera.  I noticed that when it comes out 
of the charger all nice and hot, and then I place it into the camera it does 
not work.  If I pop it out and let it cool for a few minutes, and then try to 
use it, it works.

The battery in the PC similarly did not work immediately after being warm 
from several repeated charge cycles.  I let it cool by removing it from the 
machine in the rather un-scientific series of procedures that led to eventual 
success.

Thanks for the "Battery Mini-HowTo".  I never trust the advice I get at 
retail stores since they're not motivated to tell you that your battery is OK.

Mike M.