How To Calibrate Your Laptop Battery For Accurate Power Indicatations

Calibration of your laptop battery is something you should do periodically.

What is this? Does this have something to do with your battery not developing a “memory”

No, “memory” isn’t much of a problem these days. That was an issue with the old Nicad batteries, but today’s Lithium ion batteries don’t have that issue.

Calibration has to do with your battery being in accurate synch with the computer in terms of how much power you have left. When your calibration is off, then the little indicator of how much battery power you have left can be wildly inaccurate.

How do you know this probably has to be done? Well…

• Ever charged your laptop to 100%, then when you unplugged it, it immediate pops down to 95% or something similar?
• Ever used your laptop on battery, but it seems as if the battery is dying extremely fast?

Yeah, you might want to calibrate. There’s always that possibility that the battery just went sour, but calibration is always the thing to try first.

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HowtoGeek has a full how-to on how to calibrate the battery.

Calibrating — or recalibrating, really, as the battery was calibrated in the past when the battery had more capacity — involves letting the battery run from 100% capacity straight down to almost dead, then charging it back to full. The battery’s power meter will then see how long the battery lasts and get a much more accurate idea of how much capacity the battery has left.

Some laptop manufacturers include utilities that will calibrate the battery for you. These tools will usually just make sure your laptop has a full battery, disable power management settings, and allow the battery to run to empty so the battery’s internal circuitry can get an idea of how long the battery lasts. Check your laptop manufacturer’s website for information on using any utilities they provide.

Not much to it, really. This is something you should add to your regular PC maintenance procedures. Not too often, though… once or twice per year will suffice just fine.

Source:
How to Calibrate Your Laptop’s Battery For Accurate Battery Life Estimates | HowToGeek