Prolong Lifespan
Cleaning Tips
Tune-up Program
Battery Maintenance
BATTERY MAINTENANCE PART 2
Draining a Smart Lithium-Ion
A Lithium Ion Battery is sometimes thought to be "maintenance free" It is in fact a low
maintenance battery, but is not maintenance free. The battery contains a logic circuit
which "tells" Windows 98 the charge state of the battery. At times the battery logic circuit
gets confused and requires a reset. The only way to reset this logic circuit is to discharge
the battery fully and then recharge it fully. A Smart Nickel metal Hydrate battery also
contains a logic circuit and may improve performance as a result of the process noted below:
The process to discharge a lithium ion battery successfully is as follows:
- On booting up your DesknoteTM, type CTRL-ALT-S when indicated, to enter the System Configuration Utility.
- Turn off Power Management, by typing ALT, the go to the Power menu, then ENTER to uncheck the "Power Saving" feature. Then go to "Exit" and "Save and Exit". Type "Enter" when the utility menu asks you to confirm if you wish to "save current setup parameters to CMOS RAM". The system will now reboot on it's own.
(NOTE: It is not recommended that the user modify any other settings in the System Configuration Utility as this may cause the DesknoteTM to not function properly).
- During the reboot when the screen shows " to enter System Configuration Utility", type the F8 key to display the Windows 98 Startup Menu and various boot-up choices. Select "5. Command Prompt Only". This will boot the DesknoteTM in DOS mode.
- Leave the unit on until the battery discharges fully. Discharging the battery in Windows does not work properly - the discharge should occur in DOS.
- Restart the unit on battery and repeat steps 3 and 4, above to ensure the battery is fully discharged.
- Plug the unit in and fully charge the battery (approximately 5 hours of charging with the computer turned off). Recharge the battery to maximum capacity until the battery LED on the computer, below the LCD screen shows green; do not rely on Windows to give you an accurate reading of the battery charge.
- Turn on Power Management. On booting up your DesknoteTM, type CTRL-ALT-S when indicated, to enter the System Configuration Utility. Then, type ALT, W, then ENTER to check the "Power Saving" feature. Exit and save. The system will reboot on it's own.
- Unplug the AC adapter and then plug it back in again to ensure that the battery is at maximum capacity (Battery LED is Green and Windows Power Management shows at least 95% charge).
See your Windows manual and help files for further information on the Windows Advanced Power Management settings that are recommended for your specific usage characteristics.