Hi Mel! Yes leaving the battery in this whole time is the way to go to
calibrate it. And the calibration could be lost if you did remove the
battery during this time. Thus it all could be all for nothing if you did.

As why you didn't have to calibrate on your Dells... well there is
different software (drivers) and hardware to measure the capacity of the
battery. For example, "BattStat Beta v0.98" which is free, works well
for most laptops without calibrating. As it knows the true capacity and
all (most of the time).

And it depends on how they measure the battery and all. And what the
hardware will tell the battery meter. And some batteries has hardware
with a ROM and some sort of RAM (probably flash memory which can act as
both the ROM and RAM) within the battery. And when the capacity drops,
it can update itself so no calibration is necessary.

If this isn't stored in the battery, then Windows has to figure it out
on its own. And calibrating is the way that Windows knows how to do this.


MB_ wrote:
Bill:

So I can leave the battery in the computer, charge it say overnight, then
run it until it is totally out, then recharge, all while the battery is in
the computer?

Interesting.

I've never had such symptoms with my various Dell computers. When those
batteries went, they would just not hold a charge for very long (shorter
and shorter time intervals).

Mel



"BillW50" wrote in message
...
Pen wrote:
On 2/17/2011 7:59 AM, MZB wrote:
Okay folks, this is an HP Compaq Presario Q60-615DX. I know
this is a Dell group, but you've all been great answering my
Dell questions and I figure some of you can help me with
this problem.

The OS is W7. The computer is 8 months old and I know when I
researched it the one negative was its poor battery life.

Here's what's happening. When the battery gets low, the
computer just shuts down. Boom. Out. I have it set to give a
warning at 15% and shut down at 8%, but we don't get to the
warning stage. The exact instant varies, but generally when
it shows 21%-31% remaining it suddenly shuts down.

It works fine when plugged in. I do have a 1-year warranty,
so I'll see if the battery is covered. But could it be some
other problem, or does this sound like the battery is going
(perhaps a bad cell or two?).

Mel
When i've had batteries go bad they exhibited similar
behavior. Would read a high percentage and abruptly turn off
long before normal. A new battery solved the issue in each case.
This is very common. As it means your laptop battery needs to be
recalibrated. Basically you charge up the battery and then remove it from
the AC and use it until it quits. Then recharge and you are done.

--
Bill
Asus EEE PC 702G4 ~ 2GB RAM ~ 16GB-SDHC
Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix Linux