Vaio Battery does not seem to keep its charge?

[smileystar23]

Hiya!

My battery on my vaio doesnt seem to keep its charge? i can keep it charged in the mains until the battery is full. but then when i turn my computer on the next day i'm lucky if i can use the battery power for 5mins. i dont use my computer alot so dont use the power that quickly. i have not even had the laptop for a year yet? any suggestions would be much appreciated????

Thanks

[dwh_955]

I realise this is well down the line from the original post, but I have recently bought an S-series Vaio that I have owned for about 1 month. I have been very careful to unplug the battery when charged to full and run the battery flat before re-charging, my battery has recently reduced in performance from providing me with a good 4 hours use to 1 hour. I cant believe that i have damaged the battery so assuming there must still be some kind of software fault.

[peardr0p]

My Sony VAIO laptop is just 2 years old and the battery will not hold a charge anymore. Is this normal after 2 years?

[jumpsuit]

@peardr0p Hi and welcome to the Sony User Community

Yes, sadly this can be more normal nowadays

Batteries can degrade due to a number of factors (some random).

I remember reading recently that for most lithium-iron laptop batteries the time it takes for them to lose 80 percent capacity is one to two years.

Was it a recent model?

[r0000x]

Yep this is quite normal. It doesn't have to be - indeed, with care it's possible for the battery to still hold charge for five years or more. However, it so happens that with normal usage patterns, most people wear out their batteries within a few years.

Really it's not so much about the time as it is how frequently and how deeply you discharge the battery.

Batteries often count how many charge cycles they have been through as a way of measuring health. Sometimes manufacturers give a number of cycles as a guide for how long the battery will last (Apple, for instance, often say 1000 cycles). A cycle is one whole battery's worth of discharge and recharge. So discharging from 100% to 0% and charging up again is one cycle. Discharging from 100% to 50% and charging up again is half a cycle, and if you do that twice in a row, you've completed one whole cycle.

But here's the thing: all charge cycles are not equal. Discharging from 100% to 50% twice in a row is NOT the same as completely draining the battery in one sitting. Completely draining the battery is MUCH more damaging. It is MUCH BETTER to keep the battery from discharging too deeply. Going below 30% is much more stressful on the battery chemistry than stopping and recharging at 50%. Try to prevent yourself from letting your laptop run flat too often, it is the QUICKEST WAY to ruin your battery.

Similarly, high charge levels cause wear on laptop batteries. This is why you might leave your laptop connected to a charger for months on end and still have a dying battery afterwards. This is what Sony's battery care program is meant to address, by preventing the battery from sitting at too high a charge level for too long. In my opinion, high charge levels are a lot less damaging than discharging to very low ones, though.

Many other manufacturers actually do this sort of thing automatically. They may tell you the battery is at 100%, but it's actually more like 90%. The charge control circuit is trying to prolong the battery, They also do things like switch to battery power even when mains is connected. If, say, you disconnect your laptop from the mains temporarily in order to carry it downstairs. When you reconnect, some laptops will remain on battery for a little bit, and then switch to mains, *not* recharge for half an hour, and then slowly trickle the battery back up. This is because it's better for the battery than rapidly switching between charging and discharging, which is what a 'dumb' charge circuit would have done.