Battery

Infos on how to treat your battery properly and on what you can do to extend its lifetime.

Find more information about batteries at http://batteryuniversity.com

Lithium-based batteries

• store them at about 40% charged state
• never store them fully depleted/charged
• keep them cool and dry; never freeze a battery
• the battery lasts longer with partial rather than full discharges
• avoid charging if the battery is nearly full
• never expose your laptop and/or battery to excessive heat (car parked in sun)
• take the battery/s out when running on AC

More specific links about these hints:

• http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm
• http://www.buchmann.ca/Chap10-page6.asp

The 600X problem

There is a problem with the 600X and dying batteries. The problem is tha the 600X's has problems with its power management which causes batteries to die before they should. This, in fact, resulted in a front page Slashdot.org article. According to the article, if one discharges their 600X battery nearly fully at least once a week, the batteries will be fine. I did not have problems with the battery until it was plugged in all of the time; both of my batteries went from being able to hold a charge from one hour to being able to only hold a charge for about five minutes.