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1. Battery Care and Maintenance
2. Battery Care Quick Tips
3. Laptop Power Adapter Don'ts

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Battery Care and Maintenance

Once you have determined the type and model of battery that you are using, or will use, you must provide the necessary maintenance for the battery in order to maximize its life and usefulness. This begins when you take the battery out of the box and before its initial use.

Initializing: New batteries come in a discharged condition and must be fully charged before use. NiCad and NiMH batteries should be charged for approximately 16 hours initially, and Lithium Ion batteries should be charged for about five to six hours. For NiCad and NiMH batteries, you should run your battery through at least two to four full charge/discharge cycles before putting it into ordinary service. This will help obtain maximum capacity of the battery.

When charging the battery for the first time, the device may indicate that charging is complete after just 10 or 15 minutes. This is normal with rechargeable batteries. New batteries are hard for the device to charge because they have never been fully charged and are not DOA (Dead On Arrival). Sometimes the device's charger will stop charging a new battery before it is fully charged. If this happens, remove the battery from the device and then reinsert it. The charge cycle should begin again. This may happen several times during the first battery charge. Don't worry. It's perfectly normal. Batteries that have been in storage or out of use for long periods of time should be re-initialized before being put back into service.

Conditioning: NiCad batteries must be fully discharged and then fully charged every one to three weeks, depending on frequency of use. Failure to do so will result in "memory effect" and will significantly shorten the battery's life. To discharge, simply run the device under the battery's power until it shuts down or until you get a low battery warning. Then recharge the battery as instructed in the user's manual. Because the NiMH battery has negligible memory effect and the Lithium Ion battery has no memory effect, they do not require conditioning. But we suggest you completely drain the battery and recharge it at least once every month. Or you can use battery optimizer program from utility software installed on your computer by the vendor to correct battery memory problems.

Exercising: The workload on a battery directly affects its run time. In order to maximize battery life, laptop users can apply the following tips to increase the usage time and life of their batteries.

• Optimize the power management features provided on your system. Managing the power used by the hard drive will save significant amounts of power and will extend your usage time.
• Decrease screen brightness. On color systems, you can save quite a bit of power by changing to black-and-white (monochrome) mode.
• Turn off the modem, if possible, and remove any media card not in use, such as PCMCIA, compact flash card.
• Don't leave the power cell in the system with the AC adapter plugged in unless you're charging it.

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Battery Care Quick Tips

• Battery Do's:
  1. Fully charge/discharge battery up to 4 cycles before achieving full capacity of a new battery.
  2. Fully discharge and then fully charge the battery every two to three weeks for battery conditions.
  3. Run the device under the battery's power until it shuts down or until you get a low battery warning. Then recharge the battery as instructed in the user's manual.
  4. Remove from the device and stored in a cool, dry, clean place if the battery will not be in use for a month or longer.
  5. Recharge the battery after a storage period.
  6. Ensure maximum performance of the battery by optimizing the device's power management features. Refer to the manual for further instructions.


• Battery Don'ts:
  1. Do not short-circuit. A short-circuit may cause severe damage to the battery.
  2. Do not drop, hit or otherwise abuse the battery as this may result in the exposure of the cell contents, which are corrosive.
  3. Do not expose the battery to moisture or rain. Keep battery away from fire or other sources of extreme heat.
  4. Do not incinerate. Exposure of battery to extreme heat may result in an explosion.

Laptop Power Adapter Don'ts

1. Do not remove the adapter plug from an electrical outlet by pulling the adapter power cord.
2. Do not attempt to disassemble the adapter brick.
3. Do not tamper with the adapter connector tip, twist or bend the adapter power cord.
4. Do not use the adapter near an extremely damp or hot place.
5. Do not place objects on the adapter brick and power cord.

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