best way to discharge

[Pr0jkt]

hey all,

I fully discharge my battery at least twice a week. I'm wondering the best method of doing this.


I useally let my battery drain while i sleep by putting on a playlist then turning my screen off ( via F1)

When I wake up my screen shows in black and white with a little "status" bar. I'm not sure if my battery discharged all the way or not.

Can you guys give me a proper and affective way to do this??


Thanks

Pr0jkt

 

[Radioman]

Why would you want to do that? Lithium Ion does not need nor benefit from that.

 

[mad jew]

Agreed. Don't do that on purpose. Otherwise, there is no proper way to discharge a battery. You can do it however you like.

 

[thiagofll]

From what I've read, you can actually reduce the life of your battery by completely draining its charge. Lithium Ion cannot be completely empty of charge, otherwise it might never come back to life and you will have to buy a new battery....

Once it is fully charged unplug it from the wall or remove the battery (if you are at home)...That's the best way to keep your battery holding its charge for a long time....

 

[Willis]

You only need to drain your battery about every month or so to recalibrate it. theres info on this on apples support pages

 

[hStack]

I do the same thing but once a week instead. Once the battery meter hits 0%, it goes to sleep and the sleep indicator pulses on and off for a couple of hours, then goes off. At that point the battery should be empty. Obviously pushing the power button without the adapter plugged on, won't turn it on till the adapter is attached to an outlet. The Macbook should wake up and I see a B/W screen of the desktop with whatever windows were last open. A status bar pops up while the macbook reloads the RAM from the HD, and things are ready after a few seconds.

The preceding sequence of event is what make up battery calibration. I did this one time with DVD player and was impressed when the Macbook woke up and automatically started the DVD at the point where it had to shut off and sleep. However if I had Itunes streaming from a web radio station, it wont restart the stream again after waking up from battery calibration.

 

[Cue]

You only need to drain your battery about every month or so to recalibrate it. theres info on this on apples support pages

Ditto

 

[Radioman]

There is no harm in keeping the battery calibrated from time to time, but this has nothing to do with preventing memory effect that used to blight NiCd and NiMh batteries, Lithium Ion batteries simpply don't have this at all. In fact they won't last as long if you keep deeply discharging them and then recharging, you may notice significant loss of capacity after less than a year's use if you do - So BEWARE!

 

[Cue]

So basically every few months thereafter you have to discharge your macbook's battery in the following way...

follow these steps to calibrate your battery:

1. Plug in the power adapter and fully charge your PowerBook's battery until the light ring or LED on the power adapter plug changes to green and the onscreen meter in the menu bar indicates that the battery is fully charged.
2. Allow the battery to rest in the fully charged state for at least two hours. You may use your computer during this time as long as the adapter is plugged in.
3. Disconnect the power adapter with the computer still on and start running the computer off battery power. You may use your computer during this time. When your battery gets low, you will see the low battery warning dialog on the screen.
4. Continue to keep your computer on until it goes to sleep. Save all your work and close all applications when the battery gets very low, before the computer goes to sleep.
5. Turn off the computer or allow it to sleep for five hours or more.
6. Connect the power adapter and leave it connected until the battery is fully charged again.

Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance