[mk1james]

Sorry if i have posted this in the wrong place wasnt sure where to put it.

Ok my laptop battery when i bought it brand new used to able to stay on for like 1.30 hours, and one days it just desided to go to 5 mins :S. Is my battery just got to old (2 years) or is there something ive done?

It is a Medion MIM2080.

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Hi,
Welcome to the forum.
Battery life can be variable and 2 years use is often considered reasonable. Some batteries seem to fail pretty quickly whilst others go on and on.
Eventually all batteries begin to show their age and each charge seems to provide shorter and shorter working life.

Before getting a new battery here's some things you can consider:

1 Let your battery drain down to flat and then recharge to 100%, then let it drain down again (leave it on with some programmes or DVD running etc
2 Repeat this process about 3 times, this will help to "condition" your battery and remove the "memory effect" of partial recharges.
3 Check your power saving settings (via Control Panel) to ensure that power saving is optimised
4 Check that screen brightness is set to a reasonable level, (the brighter the screen the higher the battery drain)
5 Check for any items plugged into your machine that are not being used or are unnecessary, for example, pcmcia cards are notorious for sapping power even if nothing is plugged in to them. Some USB stuff is similar
6 Some machines will automatically lower the CPU speed when on battery power, but this can sometimes be switched off for maximum performance, but at the expense of battery life.
7 Screen savers and the like can take up valuable power and often provide very little benefit.
8 The use of sleep mode or hibernate can often prolong the time the machine will run with little battery drain.

I Hope some of these ideas work for you...if not it may be time to consider having your local computer tech test your battery and or provide a new one
Regards
paws

[paws]

Hi,
Welcome to the forum.
Battery life can be variable and 2 years use is often considered reasonable. Some batteries seem to fail pretty quickly whilst others go on and on.
Eventually all batteries begin to show their age and each charge seems to provide shorter and shorter working life.

Before getting a new battery here's some things you can consider:

1 Let your battery drain down to flat and then recharge to 100%, then let it drain down again (leave it on with some programmes or DVD running etc
2 Repeat this process about 3 times, this will help to "condition" your battery and remove the "memory effect" of partial recharges.
3 Check your power saving settings (via Control Panel) to ensure that power saving is optimised
4 Check that screen brightness is set to a reasonable level, (the brighter the screen the higher the battery drain)
5 Check for any items plugged into your machine that are not being used or are unnecessary, for example, pcmcia cards are notorious for sapping power even if nothing is plugged in to them. Some USB stuff is similar
6 Some machines will automatically lower the CPU speed when on battery power, but this can sometimes be switched off for maximum performance, but at the expense of battery life.
7 Screen savers and the like can take up valuable power and often provide very little benefit.
8 The use of sleep mode or hibernate can often prolong the time the machine will run with little battery drain.

I Hope some of these ideas work for you...if not it may be time to consider having your local computer tech test your battery and or provide a new one
Regards
paws

[shard92]

Before following the suggestions above you will want to see what kind of battery you have... if it is a lithium-ion then that will not work as they cannot be reconditioned...

[mk1james]

on the back of my battery it says LI-ION battery does that mean its a lithium-ion. If not how do i tell?

[shard92]

Yep that is a lithium-Ion and everything I've read says they cannot be reconditioned.... at least not with the above message as you should never run a lithium-ion till it is dead...

I see you are from England so I don't know if you have such a place but here we have a place called Batteries Plus and that is what they do almost exclusively is batteries ( they also do laptop Power supplies I believe ) and they might be able to help you.... again you would have to find the equivalent there... However It does sound like the battery is dead and you may just want to get another if they are not too expensive...

[mk1james]

Thanks for the fast reply

ive been trying to look for the battiery but i cant seem to find it anymore :S ... even been lookin on places like ebay and that and cant find one. I might look around the internet to see if they have a place like batteries plus.

Thanks for your help.