A few days ago, my laptop battery started to give up on me. The power indicator would flash and create a weird “buzzing” sound while the computer’s plugged into outlet power. Also, it seemed as if the power wasn’t connected at all sometime.
My solution to that? Calibrating the battery. I explored Google and a variety of other sources to calibrate or recondition laptop batteries. To no avail, I stopped my search there and referred to the HP manufacturer’s handbook.
Surprisingly, it offered some really helpful laptop battery calibration and maintenance tips, which I’d like to share with you:
Calibrating a Laptop Battery Pack
When to Calibrate
Even if a battery pack is heavily used, it should not be necessary
to calibrate it more than once a month. It is not necessary to
calibrate a new battery pack before first use. However, make sure
that the battery pack is fully charged,
especially if it is the only
power source.
Calibrate the battery pack under the following conditions:
? When the battery status display seems inaccurate.
? When you observe a significant change in normal battery
run time.
? When the battery pack has not been used for one month
or more.
How to Calibrate
To calibrate a battery pack, you must fully charge, fully
discharge, and then fully recharge the battery pack.
Charging the Battery Pack
Fully charge the battery pack when the notebook is in use. To
charge the battery pack:
1. Insert the battery pack into the notebook.
2. Connect the notebook to external power through an
AC adapter. (The battery light turns on.)
The battery light turns off when the battery pack is fully charged.
Discharging the Battery Pack
Disabling Hibernation
To fully discharge the battery pack, disable Hibernation
temporarily.
To disable Hibernation:
� Select the Power Meter icon on the taskbar or access Power
Options > Hibernate, and clear the Enable Hibernate support
check box.
Discharging the Battery Pack
After the battery light turns off, which indicates that the battery
pack is fully charged, begin discharging the battery pack.
To fully discharge the battery pack:
1. Select the Power Meter icon on the taskbar, or select Start >
Control Panel > Performance and Maintenance > Power
Options > Power Schemes.
2. Write down the 3 settings in the Plugged In column and the
3 settings in the Running on Batteries column, so you can
reset them after calibration.
3. Select the drop-down lists and set all 6 options in both
columns to Never.
4. Select the OK button.
5. Disconnect the notebook from the external power source, but
do not turn off the notebook.
6. Run the notebook on battery power until the battery pack is
fully discharged. The battery light begins to blink when the
battery pack has discharged to a low-battery condition. When
the battery pack is fully discharged, the power/Standby light
turns off and the notebook shuts down.
Recharging the Battery Pack
1. Connect the notebook to external power and keep the
notebook connected until the battery pack is fully recharged
and the battery light turns off.
?You can use the notebook while the battery pack is recharging, but
the battery pack will charge faster if the notebook is turned off.
2. Select the Power Meter icon on the taskbar or select Start >
Control Panel > Performance and Maintenance > Power
Options > Power Schemes.
3. Reenter the 3 settings you wrote down for the 3 options in the
Plugged In column and for the 3 options in the Running on
Batteries column.
4. Select the OK button.
Select Cheapes Laptop Batteries Pack
Dell Battery, Compaq Battery, IBM Battery, HP Battery
Informations from: http://www.eastwoodzhao.com/maintaining-and-calibrating-a-laptop-battery-pack/
May 21, 2009
Overview IBM ThinkPad R51 Notebook
The slim, expandable R51 is one great portable.
It doesn't have a hip new wide screen, a six-in-one media card reader, or a built-in DVD burner. But if you're looking for a terrific deal on a mainstream notebook, the IBM ThinkPad R51 delivers. The excellent keyboard, expandable design, long battery life, and 5.5-pound weight add up to one great portable for $1694.
The keyboard features deep-depressing keys in an easy-to-navigate layout. Both pointing devices, touchpad and eraserhead, are included. Each has its own set of mouse buttons, and eraserhead fans get two additional bonuses: a good scrolling button and three swappable caps (we found the smooth soft dome the most comfortable). If your work keeps you in the dark a lot--say, on a plane or in meeting rooms--you'll appreciate the ThinkLight, an LED mounted in the screen frame that softly illuminates the keyboard. Do you find yourself squinting at the screen, even under plenty of light? Launched by the combination keystroke of Fn-Space, the spacebar magnifier zooms the current window to fill the screen. The result is not 100 percent crisp, but it's plenty readable.
Like to keep your upgrade options open? Think you might want more RAM, a bigger hard drive, more connections, or longer ibm battery life down the road? It will cost you, but the R51 offers more choices for expansion than any other notebook we've reviewed in this price range. Our unit had 512MB of RAM installed. You get 256MB built in, leaving you one open memory slot to fill with an additional DIMM up to 1GB for a total of 1.28GB. That's short of the up to 2GB of main memory some expensive notebooks offer, but it should be plenty for most users. You can easily access the socket by removing one screw from a bottom panel. Ditto for the 40GB hard drive, which you can pull out of the right side of the notebook by its cover.
You get expansion possibilities galore with the ibm r51 lithium ion battery and docking options--not that you necessarily need them. The R51's standard battery, a rear detachable unit, turned in excellent performance in our tests, lasting almost 4 hours on one charge. For even longer-lasting independence from an outlet, swap in the extended-life replacement battery ($99), which lasts 30 percent longer, according to IBM (we did not test it). Finally, you can use either the standard or replacement ibm thinkpad r51 battery in combination with a second 3.5-hour battery ($170) in the notebook's right modular bay (you will have to remove the combination drive first). When you aren't using the bay for the optical drive or a ibm laptop battery, you can insert a second hard drive. A release on the side, instead of the bottom, of the notebook lets you pop devices out using one hand.
The Wi-Fi-ready R51 comes with a full set of notebook connections, including a parallel port (but no serial) for legacy fans, two USB 2.0 ports, and FireWire and TV-out ports. But for easier desktop cable management and for expanding your horizons, IBM offers three docking options, ranging from the simple (the $179 ThinkPad Port Replicator II) to the slightly more sophisticated (the $229 ThinkPad Mini-Dock, with its own power adapter and two additional USB ports) to a high-end base that includes an additional modular bay (the $399 ThinkPad Dock II).
The R51 should be fast enough to handle just about any type of application. In our testing it set a WorldBench 5 mark of 67, which is 3 percent faster than the average score for notebooks equipped with Intel's 1.5-GHz/600-MHz Pentium M processor and 512MB of RAM.
Wrapping it all up is the excellent on-screen user manual, in our opinion the best in the industry. Considering this manual's dedicated launch button and step-by-step animated tutorials, it's hard to fault IBM for dropping print documentation.
We have just a couple of minor complaints: The set of mouse buttons provided for the touchpad sit a tad too close to the front of the notebook. We were able to press them most of the time, but occasionally we instead thwacked the edge of the case with our thumbs. And like most ThinkPad notebooks, the R51 is not a music machine, despite a nice set of press-and-hold volume buttons at the top of the keyboard. The sound quality is fine, with no distortion or extreme tinniness, but a bit too low for more than casual listening.
Upshot: Slim, fully featured (including an excellent keyboard), and extremely expandable, the R51 strikes just the right balance for individuals and businesses desiring mainstream features more than bells and whistles. No other $1700 notebook we know of offers so many docking and battery expansion options. You do, however, have to pay extra for business software, starting at $130 for Microsoft Office Basic Edition 2003.
Informations from http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/product/21801/review/thinkpad_r51_notebook.html
It doesn't have a hip new wide screen, a six-in-one media card reader, or a built-in DVD burner. But if you're looking for a terrific deal on a mainstream notebook, the IBM ThinkPad R51 delivers. The excellent keyboard, expandable design, long battery life, and 5.5-pound weight add up to one great portable for $1694.
The keyboard features deep-depressing keys in an easy-to-navigate layout. Both pointing devices, touchpad and eraserhead, are included. Each has its own set of mouse buttons, and eraserhead fans get two additional bonuses: a good scrolling button and three swappable caps (we found the smooth soft dome the most comfortable). If your work keeps you in the dark a lot--say, on a plane or in meeting rooms--you'll appreciate the ThinkLight, an LED mounted in the screen frame that softly illuminates the keyboard. Do you find yourself squinting at the screen, even under plenty of light? Launched by the combination keystroke of Fn-Space, the spacebar magnifier zooms the current window to fill the screen. The result is not 100 percent crisp, but it's plenty readable.
Like to keep your upgrade options open? Think you might want more RAM, a bigger hard drive, more connections, or longer ibm battery life down the road? It will cost you, but the R51 offers more choices for expansion than any other notebook we've reviewed in this price range. Our unit had 512MB of RAM installed. You get 256MB built in, leaving you one open memory slot to fill with an additional DIMM up to 1GB for a total of 1.28GB. That's short of the up to 2GB of main memory some expensive notebooks offer, but it should be plenty for most users. You can easily access the socket by removing one screw from a bottom panel. Ditto for the 40GB hard drive, which you can pull out of the right side of the notebook by its cover.
You get expansion possibilities galore with the ibm r51 lithium ion battery and docking options--not that you necessarily need them. The R51's standard battery, a rear detachable unit, turned in excellent performance in our tests, lasting almost 4 hours on one charge. For even longer-lasting independence from an outlet, swap in the extended-life replacement battery ($99), which lasts 30 percent longer, according to IBM (we did not test it). Finally, you can use either the standard or replacement ibm thinkpad r51 battery in combination with a second 3.5-hour battery ($170) in the notebook's right modular bay (you will have to remove the combination drive first). When you aren't using the bay for the optical drive or a ibm laptop battery, you can insert a second hard drive. A release on the side, instead of the bottom, of the notebook lets you pop devices out using one hand.
The Wi-Fi-ready R51 comes with a full set of notebook connections, including a parallel port (but no serial) for legacy fans, two USB 2.0 ports, and FireWire and TV-out ports. But for easier desktop cable management and for expanding your horizons, IBM offers three docking options, ranging from the simple (the $179 ThinkPad Port Replicator II) to the slightly more sophisticated (the $229 ThinkPad Mini-Dock, with its own power adapter and two additional USB ports) to a high-end base that includes an additional modular bay (the $399 ThinkPad Dock II).
The R51 should be fast enough to handle just about any type of application. In our testing it set a WorldBench 5 mark of 67, which is 3 percent faster than the average score for notebooks equipped with Intel's 1.5-GHz/600-MHz Pentium M processor and 512MB of RAM.
Wrapping it all up is the excellent on-screen user manual, in our opinion the best in the industry. Considering this manual's dedicated launch button and step-by-step animated tutorials, it's hard to fault IBM for dropping print documentation.
We have just a couple of minor complaints: The set of mouse buttons provided for the touchpad sit a tad too close to the front of the notebook. We were able to press them most of the time, but occasionally we instead thwacked the edge of the case with our thumbs. And like most ThinkPad notebooks, the R51 is not a music machine, despite a nice set of press-and-hold volume buttons at the top of the keyboard. The sound quality is fine, with no distortion or extreme tinniness, but a bit too low for more than casual listening.
Upshot: Slim, fully featured (including an excellent keyboard), and extremely expandable, the R51 strikes just the right balance for individuals and businesses desiring mainstream features more than bells and whistles. No other $1700 notebook we know of offers so many docking and battery expansion options. You do, however, have to pay extra for business software, starting at $130 for Microsoft Office Basic Edition 2003.
Informations from http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/product/21801/review/thinkpad_r51_notebook.html
May 20, 2009
What's The Difference Between Laptop and Notebook Computers?
What's The Difference Between Laptop and Notebook Computers?
Most people use the terms notebook and laptop computer interchangably. Once it's not sitting on top of your desk every portable computer instantly becomes a notebook or laptop regardless of its configuration or individual specification. There are, however, some very big differences between notebook and laptop computers and it's important that you're aware of these differences during the buying process.
This article is being written on a laptop computer as a matter of coincidence but let's get to the meat of the article and explain the basic differences that you need to be aware of.
Let's look at the notebook computer first.
The Notebook ComputerA standard notebook has the following features:
1. Ultralight. Less weight is better.
2. 4 - 5 hour notebook battery life.
3. No internal floppy drive.
4. Minimal graphics subsystem.
5. No internal DVD or CD system.
6. 12" - 14" TFT screen.
7. Low profile (thin).
8. Integrated modem and network connection.
9. Smallest possible keyboard that retains functionality.
10. Low power consumption Celeron/Centrino or Sempron style processor
In essence a notebook computer is designed to provide mobile computing that won't break your back yet still offer all the power the mobile users requires for work and some leisure pursuits. This portability normally comes at a price. The level of minituarization involved comes at a cost and high end notebooks can prove to be quite expensive.
The Laptop Computer Now for the laptop computer. Again look at the name. A laptop is designed to sit on your lap and you can therefore expect it to be quite large and loaded down with features and power. The
The standard laptop computer would have some ,if not all, of the following features:
1. 14" - 17" (widescreen) TFT screen.
2. Nvidia GeForce or ATI Radeon graphics subsystem.
3. Internal DVD-ROM or DVD-RW drive
4. Large full featured keyboard.
5. 3 hour+ laptop battery life.
6. Upgradeable.
7. Integrated modem, network, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capabilities.
8. High quality integrate audio and speaker system.
9. Low power consumption, high performance Intel Centrino style processor.
From reading the above information you'll see that the notebook is the exact opposite of the laptop. Notebooks offer reasonable power and extreme portability. Laptops are designed to be capable of replacing an entire desktop PC if necessary whilst still offering desktop performance in a mobile platform. Hopefully this article has helped clear up the differences between both classes of portable computers. As time and technology moves on the line between laptop and notebook will continue to blur but for right now it's still clearly defined and driven by the demands of the portable computer market.
Most people use the terms notebook and laptop computer interchangably. Once it's not sitting on top of your desk every portable computer instantly becomes a notebook or laptop regardless of its configuration or individual specification. There are, however, some very big differences between notebook and laptop computers and it's important that you're aware of these differences during the buying process.
This article is being written on a laptop computer as a matter of coincidence but let's get to the meat of the article and explain the basic differences that you need to be aware of.
Let's look at the notebook computer first.
The Notebook ComputerA standard notebook has the following features:
1. Ultralight. Less weight is better.
2. 4 - 5 hour notebook battery life.
3. No internal floppy drive.
4. Minimal graphics subsystem.
5. No internal DVD or CD system.
6. 12" - 14" TFT screen.
7. Low profile (thin).
8. Integrated modem and network connection.
9. Smallest possible keyboard that retains functionality.
10. Low power consumption Celeron/Centrino or Sempron style processor
In essence a notebook computer is designed to provide mobile computing that won't break your back yet still offer all the power the mobile users requires for work and some leisure pursuits. This portability normally comes at a price. The level of minituarization involved comes at a cost and high end notebooks can prove to be quite expensive.
The Laptop Computer Now for the laptop computer. Again look at the name. A laptop is designed to sit on your lap and you can therefore expect it to be quite large and loaded down with features and power. The
The standard laptop computer would have some ,if not all, of the following features:
1. 14" - 17" (widescreen) TFT screen.
2. Nvidia GeForce or ATI Radeon graphics subsystem.
3. Internal DVD-ROM or DVD-RW drive
4. Large full featured keyboard.
5. 3 hour+ laptop battery life.
6. Upgradeable.
7. Integrated modem, network, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capabilities.
8. High quality integrate audio and speaker system.
9. Low power consumption, high performance Intel Centrino style processor.
From reading the above information you'll see that the notebook is the exact opposite of the laptop. Notebooks offer reasonable power and extreme portability. Laptops are designed to be capable of replacing an entire desktop PC if necessary whilst still offering desktop performance in a mobile platform. Hopefully this article has helped clear up the differences between both classes of portable computers. As time and technology moves on the line between laptop and notebook will continue to blur but for right now it's still clearly defined and driven by the demands of the portable computer market.
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