[Techtalk] Random: MS problem, Linux solution and an experiment

[Terri Oda]

At 01:33 PM 24/01/02 +1100, you wrote:
>On Thu, 2002-01-24 at 06:56, James wrote:
>
> > The battery was basically 'drained out' yesterday and it has been
> > charging for nearly 16+ hours.  After I go to my last class, I'll come
> > along and see how long I can use it before it kills itself again.
> >
> > It used to seem to go 3-4 hours, but now it barely makes seemingly 30-45
> > minutes.
>You can partly restore the structure by -utterly- draining the battery
>(have it run the laptop till it can't) and recharging. You might need to
>do this two or three times.

Mine actually started acting like that,  (only charging to say, 20% instead 
of something close to full, and also shutting off but being able to run for 
another 10 minutes if I left it a minute or two before powering up again), 
and when I brought it in to get something else checked they actually 
suggested that upgrading the smart battery thing in the bios (??  I think 
that's what they said, but my memory's a bit fuzzy, so maybe it was 
actually a separate battery chip.) would solve the problem, and that they 
could do that pretty much for free since I was having other work 
done.  Unfortunately, it didn't fix the problem in my case, and repeated 
draining didn't help, so I eventually invested in the new battery.  But it 
might be worth looking at all the same, since it's probably cheaper than 
battery replacement!

  Terri