[SOLVED] Battery charge at 125%

[geoaraujo]

Hello!

I'm running Kubuntu 12.04.

At system monitor battery charge displays 125%!

How can it be fixed?

[zzzleepy]

What does the command "acpi -i" shows in console?

[geoaraujo]

What does the command "acpi -i" shows in console?

It says:

$ acpi -i
Battery 0: Full, 100%
Battery 0: design capacity 4500 mAh, last full capacity 3645 mAh = 81%

It seems to be worning out, which is awful in many ways.
But I usually use my laptop plugged in, I don't undestand why it is so worned out.

[zzzleepy]

Mine is already worn out because I too keep my laptop plugged in at all times. When I boot my laptop, some times it says it's at 48% others on 38%, showing that my battery needs to be replaced. Some claim that you should take out the battery when you have the plug always in others that it makes no difference because the charge stops when battery reaches 100% of capacity. But all agree that batteries have a period of 1 to 3 years life, depending on how you use your laptop.

Some interesting read:

http://mobileoffice.about.com/od/usi...Plugged-In.htm
http://batterycare.net/en/guide.html

[geoaraujo]

Mine is already worn out because I too keep my laptop plugged in at all times. When I boot my laptop, some times it says it's at 48% others on 38%, showing that my battery needs to be replaced. Some claim that you should take out the battery when you have the plug always in others that it makes no difference because the charge stops when battery reaches 100% of capacity. But all agree that batteries have a period of 1 to 3 years life, depending on how you use your laptop.

Some interesting read:

http://mobileoffice.about.com/od/usi...Plugged-In.htm
http://batterycare.net/en/guide.html

Thanks for the tips.
I guess this is "solved" then...

[james147]

From what I can gather, lithion ion batteries (the type generally found in mobile devices like laptops) slowly lose their maximum capacity.

However there are several factors that can speed this up mainly:
1) heat: the hotter the battery the quicker it dies
2) stored charge: the higher charge you store it at the quicker it dies.

Heat affects them much more then stored charge and it one reason why more powerful laptops tend to kill their battery quicker.

It is generally not worth worrying about stored charge unless you know that you are not going to use the device in a long period of time (more than a week or two). If you are then it is best to store them at about 40-50% charge (as they do lose charge slowly when not plugged in).

WARNING lithium ion batteries do not like being full drained for long periods of time. They tend to cut off before the charge is completely drained as once it is completely drained you cannot charge it again.

So one of the reasons why some batteries just seem to die is that they have been left on to drain fully and then forgotten about for several days.

Most lithium ion batteries tend to last 1-3years if badly treated and 3-6 years if properly treated.

[GreyGeek]

Generally, if you don't let an Li Ion battery discharge below 10% or charge over 80% it can last a LONG time. My old Sony VAIO VGN-FW140/E has such firmware in its battery controller. This June that laptop will be four years old, and the time it gives running on battery between 10 and 80% has always hoovered around 2 hours. Since I got my new Acer in January I haven't been using the Sony and haven't even kept it plugged in. Yesterday I decided to put Precise on it and when I plugged it in and turned it on I noticed that the battery had discharged itself down to 37% in three months, a drop of 43%. Typical discharge rate.