My battery

[Cohen]

Hi everyone,

Alright, this is my situation. On Sunday night, i took the bottom off my laptop to check what Ram i had etc before i went and bought a 2GB Ram Stick.

As a safety precaution, i took my battery out to check the ram..... Ever since, i haven't been getting the life out of the battery. I was getting 90 mins to 120mins out of the battery, now i get 60 mins, if that!

I keep cycling to battery, but it isn't making any difference.... what else should i do????

Thanks,

Cohen

[LH-Danny]

Are you experiencing the shorter battery life after you've installed the RAM?

[deathshadow]

Would be interesting, but LH-Danny might be on the right track. Was it a 1:1 replace or an addition? Are you now using two sticks instead of one?

Larger capacity RAM usually has to be refreshed more using more power... Though it shouldn't have cut your battery life the 30%+ you are reporting, a 5-10% change would not be out of the ordinary.

I'd check that you didn't knock anything loose and don't have any borderline 'shorts' on the mainboard. Sometimes something you don't use like bluetooth or the headphone jack can have an intermittent short to the case (if there's a RF shield) causing battery drain. Go in, check all your connections, and make sure no circuitry is rubbing up against any of the RF shields. Wireless adapters are notorious for that.

[Mitcho1989]

remove the battery, hold it above the ground, then release your hand.

place your foot directly above it, and proceed to slam your foot down, repeat this process 5-6 times.

if that doesnt work, place it on a road, and wait for 30-45 minutes, ensuring that oncoming traffic do collide with it, and see if that works.

[Cohen]

In my laptop, i had a 2GB Stick and a 1GB Stick - it only has 2 slots. I replaced the 1GB with the 2GB to give me a total of 4GB.

I only have really noticed it since i added the new ram.....

I just unplugged my laptop from the power and it is at 98% and said it will last 90 mins, it is getting better.... i think my laptop just needs to cycle the ram.... my laptop was going really nicely on battery, with the original ram..... but it took some time for it too become good. I'll just give it some time and see how i go.

Thanks for the advice guys, i didn't know if my battery was playing up or anything.. it must be the new ram.

[deathshadow]

Could be the new amperage draw of the RAM made the system need to recalculate time remaining - in which case yeah, some burn in and a few discharage/recharge cycles will get it to recalculate.

[Cohen]

Alright, thanks ..... I'll see how it goes

I'll report back.

[Cohen]

Just an update.

It had been getting worse and worse.... so i thought it must be the battery, because i had checked everything else.

Today when i booted up my laptop, windows 7 said "consider changing your battery". I contacted Acer, and the battery is covered under warranty, so they are sending me a replacement

Save myself $250 (from acer) or $140 (from an online store) for a new battery

[cbuckley]

(Jan-22-2010 12:31 AM)Mitcho1989 Wrote:  remove the battery, hold it above the ground, then release your hand.

place your foot directly above it, and proceed to slam your foot down, repeat this process 5-6 times.

if that doesnt work, place it on a road, and wait for 30-45 minutes, ensuring that oncoming traffic do collide with it, and see if that works.

Very clever

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(Jan-22-2010 12:31 AM)Mitcho1989 Wrote:  remove the battery, hold it above the ground, then release your hand.

place your foot directly above it, and proceed to slam your foot down, repeat this process 5-6 times.

if that doesnt work, place it on a road, and wait for 30-45 minutes, ensuring that oncoming traffic do collide with it, and see if that works.

Very clever

[Ryan]

Whilst we're on the subject of batteries. The mac laptop don't have marvelous battery lives.