Calibrate Your Laptop Battery
 

Most laptops in use today are using lithium-ion batteries because they last much longer than Ni-cad and don't develop a memory. Additionally, lithium-ion batteries will only accept a charge if it is needed, so there is never any chance of overcharging. When your laptop is new, the battery meter usually gives you a very accurate estimate of time left before it needs to be charged. However, all batteries degrade over time and it becomes more and more difficult for the internal chip that estimates battery power to do its job accurately. By recharging your laptop before it is totally discharged, the chip begins to loose track of the top and bottom markers with respect to battery amp hours, but this is how most of us use our laptops (including me). In order to keep your battery meter accurate, you should regularly recalibrate your laptop battery. All you have to do to recalibrate it is to leave it on until the battery runs completely down, then immediately charge it back up to full power. It is a simple process and if done every 30 to 60 days, will keep your power meter much more accurate over the life of the laptop.

Keep in mind, most laptops use power saving utilities such as hibernation and suspend, some of which can keep the computer ready for use for a month or longer. During the calibration, you might need to disable those types of utilities so the laptop will stay at full power until the battery is dead.

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