Laptop battery question?

[SIRCOOKS]

I have a dell inspiron 600m laptop, and the battery that went with it died. So i bought a new one, but all this one says all the time is that it is on 20% of battery power remaining. What should i do to get a full charge. Turn it off for a day, while charging it?...lease anything would help?

[Ron B]

Try cycling the battery. Charge it, then let it run completely down. Turn off your battery warnings and run it until the laptop shuts down. Do this a few times.

[SIRCOOKS]

sounds good........ will try.........

[holistic]

600m should be a Li Ion battery. Llithium ion has no memory effect.
Check manufacture date. Li ion batteries start deteriorating after manufacture. It may be " new " to you but it may have sat in storage for a while.

][

[redwudz]

Most laptops that still have the factory installed OS and programs also have a battery monitoring and conditioning program. It will schedule a battery test at times to show the operating condition of the battery. It will discharge the battery and recharge it during the test, then discharge it once more when it is fully charged. This does take a while. While not required, this should help maintain your battery health, or at least tell you it's present condition.

But it is strange that the battery doesn't go to full charge.

I would also be a bit suspicious of your battery charger, mainly that it is doing it's job properly. Likely no problem if it's original. But I have seen after-market battery chargers that were the wrong voltage setting and would not properly charge a battery.

[Ron B]

Even with LiIon batteries, it's a good idea to do this conditioning(or cycling) deal so the computer can calibrate itself to the battery being used.
I do this with my IBM Thinkpad every time I buy a new battery or when the battery management shows a low percentage charge, kind of "refreshing" the charging system.
Besides, it doesn't hurt to try this and see if it helps before you start to worry if the battery or charger is bad.

[ahhaa]

given what replacement batteries cost, I'd make sure you are on record with Dell about this problem too.