Laptop battery only charging to 60%?

dr.stevil

dr.stevil

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So my gfs Toshiba Satellite laptop cord got chewed up by our rabbit a while ago. I finally got around to ordering a new one and while I was at it, I also replaced the battery. The old one would only charge part way and the price was cheap enough so figured replacing it wasn't a bad idea.

Anyway, so the new battery and cable came in the mail and everything seems to work ok except the battery won't charge past 60%. After it hits 60%, the battery in the task manager says 'plugged in and not charging'... Same as the old battery. Is there some sort of recalibration I can do to fix this? I also noticed that upon first plugging the battery in and charging it, the battery read 0% for the first 10-15 mins (even though it would still run the PC without AC power)

Thanks in advance
 
It is likely a "battery saver" profile in the power options / Toshiba's power management applet which prevents the battery to be charged beyond a certain point to help prolong battery life. Many people simply plugs in their laptop to the A/C outlet and use it.

Studies have shown that batteries deteriorates faster the more energy is stored. The electrical charge in a battery is basically held by the lithium polymer substance inside the battery. Ironically, the higher the charge, the more likely the lithium will begin to separate and form "lithium plates". When this happens the capacity of the battery begins to decrease. Lithium plates cannot hold a charge so the more plates that forms, the less lithium is available in the polymer to hold a charge.

Battery managers applets prevents the battery from charging too high to prevent the forming of lithium plates. Typically the battery will only charge to between 50% - 80% depending on what the manufacturer decides. The applet / power management program should give you an option to override the limitation so that you can full charge the battery for situation where you will actually be using the laptop away from an A/C outlet.

My Lenovo Y470 has an Energy Management applet running in the Windows Tray which allows me to override to automatic limitation to fully charge my battery.
 
JaguarSKX said:
It is likely a "battery saver" profile in the power options / Toshiba's power management applet which prevents the battery to be charged beyond a certain point to help prolong battery life. Many people simply plugs in their laptop to the A/C outlet and use it.

Studies have shown that batteries deteriorates faster the more energy is stored. The electrical charge in a battery is basically held by the lithium polymer substance inside the battery. Ironically, the higher the charge, the more likely the lithium will begin to separate and form "lithium plates". When this happens the capacity of the battery begins to decrease. Lithium plates cannot hold a charge so the more plates that forms, the less lithium is available in the polymer to hold a charge.

Battery managers applets prevents the battery from charging too high to prevent the forming of lithium plates. Typically the battery will only charge to between 50% - 80% depending on what the manufacturer decides. The applet / power management program should give you an option to override the limitation so that you can full charge the battery for situation where you will actually be using the laptop away from an A/C outlet.

My Lenovo Y470 has an Energy Management applet running in the Windows Tray which allows me to override to automatic limitation to fully charge my battery.
Click to expand...

This is an excellent post and as an energy researcher I can corroborate what he is saying. Another way to think of a Li-Ion battery is two Li-absorbing "meshes" (anode and cathode), between which Li-Ions are shuttled to charge/discharge the battery. If you can imagine the 100% charge state, all the lithium is incorporated into one side of the battery and the mesh on that side expands by a significant percentage. At the 0% charge state, all the lithium is on the other side, with the opposite effect. Over time this can lead to mechanical stress that damages the "mesh" materials, closing some lithium channels and reducing the capacity of your battery until it eventually becomes useless.

Basically: if you want your battery to last a long time, don't charge it over 80% and don't discharge it under 30%.
 
I always knew that this was the general rule of thumb, but interesting to hear a bit of the science behind it. Thanks for contributing.
 
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