> I've been following this thread for a while, and one thing occured >to me. If you are relying upon using your battery in your PB as the way >you discharge the battery, you may still be putting a small battery effect >into the battery each time. I understand that handicams stop use short of >complete discharge, and I used a battery discharger/charger to do the dirty >deed. Could this be true of a PB as well? It's even more true of a PB, because the Power Manager & OS will force it to sleep at a predetermined point well before the battery is fully discharged. This establishes a memory of the partial discharge (and raises the predetermined point for next time). This is precisely what the Battery Reconditioning thread is about; that utility is able to hook into the Power Manager and completely discharge the battery *while AC is connected*. That point is extremely important, since it allows the computer to stay awake (and running the utility) until the battery is as empty as possible. That's also why just regularly running down the battery or running Battery Amnesia won't accomplish the same thing. I recently rescued a Type I battery that had been sitting around for a few years (and probably crystallised all to hell) and only delivered 5 minutes of runtime at best to a Duo 280. I couldn't improve matters by running it down or using Battery Amnesia, but once I found a version of Battery Reconditioning that would run (v1.1), it went back up to just over an hour. Not great for a Duo, but reasonable for an old Type I in a 68040 (and a whole lot more useful than 5 minutes). The person who sold me the Duo had accidentally fried the battery it came with (while trying to recondition it with an external unit, ironically), and will hopefully be able to replace it with a proper Type III soon. This applies to NiCad and NiMH batteries - lithium ion batteries are supposed to be much less affected by this sort of thing (the battery will die of its own discharge-recharge cycle long before memory becomes a problem). -- Marc Sira | [EMAIL PROTECTED] "If you can't play with words, what good are they?" ---------- Duo/2400 List, The friendliest place on the Net! A listserv for users and fans of Mac subportables. FAQ at <http://www.themacintoshguy.com/lists/DuoListFAQ.shtml> Be sure to visit Mac2400! <http://www.sineware.com/mac2400> X-Router | Share your DSL or cable modem between multiple computers! Dr. Bott | <http://www.drbott.com/prod/MIH120.html> PowerBook Guy is | Click here! Everything PowerBook! | http://www.powerbookguy.com Midwest Mac Parts ][ <http://www.midwestmac.com> After-market parts for Macs. ][ 888-356-1104 ][ MacResQ Reader Specials: 2.5GB Seagate SCSI: $119, 4GB IBM SCSI: $199, Norton Util. 4.0: $29, Mac Parts, Systems & Repairs <http://www.macresq.com>
