Battery Recharge

[BoDill]

First, I have already read all the posts under, "battery recharge", and some others, but either did not find what I wanted or did not understand the post, as I am not very good with computer stuff.

My old laptop had a small battery level indicator on the panel which said that my battery was low with a 37% capacity. Recently I bought a used laptop (Dell e6420), had it stripped of all programs and loaded with Linux Mint 19.1 Tessa. It has what I would call an extended battery sticking out of the back of it. As soon as I got it home and plugged in, it showed 37% battery capacity. The owner of the repair shop where I bought it has never made a secret of the fact that he is NOT a Linux expert, but he said to ask the forum if this is a familiar problem, and also what I should do to recharge it if it needs it. He also said that he has never experienced a laptop battery charger that works well. He did say that any equipment he sells is under warranty for 60 days, so I can't get this resolved, he'll take care of it.

With that, and the fact that I like the attitude of the guy at the computer shop, I thought I would ask for advice. I am wondering if the fact that both the old and the new (to me) laptop showed a 37% capacity could be more than coincidence?

As usual, any help will be greatly appreciated,
BoDill

[rickNS]

When I hover over the battery icon in the panel it shows "% of charge".

Does yours always show the same 37% ? Plugged in, unplugged, always the same, that would be strange.

Capacity is something different than % of charge. A battery can be fully charged but still only be 37% of the capacity it had when it was new.

It could be a coincidence that both of yours are indeed 37% as your "new" one is about 8 years old.

What does your inxi -Fxz show for battery ?

Mine for example (also 8 years old) shows Battery as 98.5% charged, but only 90% of it's original capacity.

Code: Select all

BAT0: charge: 41.9 Wh 98.5% condition: 42.6/47.5 Wh (90%)

[Pippin]

Try calibrate the "battery measurement software" (or whatever it is called)

Disable suspend/hibernate and let the screen stay on for ever.
Set "When the battery is low, do nothing".
Charge the battery and when full let the charger connected for about two hours.
Disconnect the charger and let the battery drain until it shuts down abruptly.
If you get the login screen, login and let it drain further until it shuts down abruptly.
Charge the battery again and when full let the charger connected for about two hours.

That should get the battery meter calibrated.
Don`t do important things while following this procedure.

[BoDill]

To rickNS,

Thank you for the "inxi -Fxz". I entered that in my Terminal and found the battery to be at 71%. With that, I am relatively content that it will last awhile.

To Pippin,

Sadly, I don't know how to do, or even start to do, what you directed. For instance, what keys would I have to press, or where would I go to find, "suspend/hibernate"? I'm sorry to sound so stupid, but I REALLY don't know much about computer stuff. If you have the patience to walk me through it, I will certainly try to do what you suggested.

At any rate, I think that I am OK for now, as stated above.

To All,

I found what I think is a good article on this subject at, "https://medium.com/@jcoterhals/wont-you ... d7db3e8fd5", but after following the first step, "F2", I did not get the "BIOS" that is mentioned, and after screwing around for a half-an-hour, I gave up.

If anyone tries this and finds something that might help me, I'd appreciate knowing about it.

BoDill

[Pippin]

The options to disable are under Power Management in the Menu.

[karlchen]

For such experiments I would always use a live system, not my system, installed on the harddisk.
The live system simply cannot experience any filesystem corruption, when the power fails all of a sudden and the system crashes. The system, installed on the harddisk, could.

[Pippin]

Indeed, good remark ^^^