New Batteries
When purchasing a new battery, you may find that the battery is at 0% capacity. This will be due to the length of time the battery has been in stock, and does not affect the quality of the battery. If at 0%, it may take up to 12 hours of continuous charging or, cycling the battery three times (see the Battery Condition section) to wake up the battery. If the new battery still does not have a charge after having been charged for 12 hours or cycled three times, it should be replaced.
Battery Conditioning
In general, rechargeable batteries store electrical energy through chemical reaction – therefore, capacity will change by temperature, unused storage period, load condition, and number of cycles used.
The following instructions provide tips on how to obtain best battery condition to extend battery rundown time.
- Once you have started charging the battery pack, Do Not use it until it is fully charged.
- If your battery is brand new, and you are charging it for the first time, your battery may not be charged to full capacity due to characteristics of chemicals in the cell. To obtain maximum performance, all chemical materials in the battery must be fully activated.
In order to achieve this:
- Cycle the battery ( fully charge, then fully discharge) three times.
- Cycling the battery three times is also recommended if you have stored the battery for a few months.
- Do Not charge the battery pack until all of its power is used. Partial charge or discharge causes a lack of uniformity of activated chemicals in the cell, and may cause performance degradation.
It is recommended that you deep-discharge your Ni-MH battery every few months for optimum performance. Deep-discharge occurs when your ThinkPad system is used on battery power until the charge is at 0% (the system will automatically go into hibernation). At this point, attach the AC adapter and charge to 100%.
Note
It is Not recommended that you deep-discharge Li-Ion batteries.
