I have a Dell Inspiron 8200 purchased in January 2003. The original battery life for these is about 2.5 hours. My original battery now gives the low battery warning after 22 minutes. I got a new battery in 2005. It has about a 65-70 minute life now.
Is there anything that can be done to restore battery life? Is there anything that can be done to prevent loss of battery life?
I have been fortunate with my second battery which still holds over an hour two years later. I am suspicious that the first one got switched because I left my computer unattended frequently in a University computer lab with a bunch of Ph.D. students. It seems like almost overnight my battery life went from 1.5 hours to under a half hour.
I think you are right about leaving the battery disengaged because the old one still has the exact amount of capacity that it had when it was swapped out two years ago and has only been engaged once to test it this week.
Tomorrow, I am upgrading to a new computer finally. However, I am switching to HP so I will need my old DELL whenever I need servicing. HP requires that you send them your machine, while my old DELL customer service would send a technician to me.
Battery is complex some like to by completly empty and then refiled to max because of the memory in the battery. Other get hurt by be completly empty look at your battery and seen what type it is and then google for advise or post. If you are lucky you can get some of the power back. But battery is fresh material and you need to change them after a couple year.
Vice-versa when I return to the desk.
