In other news my Toshiba Paperweight Pro is having to shipped off to Germany in the hope they'll be able to replace the part I paid Brits to fix and they couldn't even do it right having taken two goes at it. Thanks guys you're a bunch of useless berks.
If you plan to leave it plugged long term I would say you should take out the battery. For the record, batteries are 'killed' by discharging them small amounts then charging them back up. Best usage of a battery would be a full charge followed by a full discharge, anything other then this is shortening the life of your battery (though in many cases not noticeably).
Good advice Xyth, I yanked the battery out for now.
I wonder how many people realize that charging their cellphone batteries with the car charger is much harder on the battery then charging them at home.
Although I was able to get the built-in webcam to work, I can't seem to use it online, such as with MSN or Yahoo. Is it possible it's not intended for online use and connecting to the intraweb?
Although the camera works for taking pictures and recording videos, it appears it's not intended for internet use. I tried with both MSN and Yahoo and both were configured properly.
A quick googl'ing shows a battery life of ±2.5h for your laptop (a brand new one I guess). Battery life depends on many factors though. In my opinion, ±100min is a little low for a not-so-old laptop, but it all depends on how you're using it. Did you dim the laptop's display and are you connected to a wireless network (or even just leaving the adapter on still sucks some extra juice)? I think these are the two main things that drain your battery quickly. You may also want to check the power settings and make sure the CPU is set to underclock when idle (in the power options, look for something called "Minimum / Maximum processor clock" or something similar, measured in %). XP was always great on my desktop PCs, but it never ran well on my laptop (which was also made for Vista). I find the power options to be lacking too and I had better battery life with Vista than XP. Now with 7 it's slightly better.
In short: ±100min seems normal to me if you're letting it run @full brightness while downloading some torrents or running CPU-hungry applications, but if you're just browsing the web or playing Solitaire, your battery might have been "weakened" in the past.
I was able to find a review on my model which gave it 2 hrs. 25 minutes of run time during a dvd playback test of some sorts. When I tested mine it was with no programs running except AVG in the background - didn't even have a browser open, the screen goes blank after 1 minute of non-usage, and the wireless network was turned off.
As to Power Schemes, Turn Off Monitor: 1 minute, Turn Off Hard Disks: Never, System Standby: Never
Have you, before first use, fully charged the battery? Have you ever had the battery go down incredibly low? How many cycles have you burned through? If you're used to charging/decharging your battery every day instead of using your mains, this can go very fast with lower quality batteries (and even normal ones)
Ultimately, a Li-Ion battery (contrarily to popular belief installed since the days of NiCd) will enjoy being charged as often as possible, even if it's for a few percent. One reason batteries seem to lose performance when constantly attached to the laptop is due to the high temperature of the computer. Another reason is that the counter in Windows freaks out when you never do full cycles. So once every so often, discharge your battery fully.
Cool temperatures are preferred, for both operation and storage. Obviously, too cold (as in freezing) will prevent the battery from working. This is why your camera or your phone appears to die when you go skiing, though this is only temporary.
To store a battery for long periods of time, put it around 40-50ish% charge. If you live in really warm climate, you can consider putting it in your fridge (ziploc/watch for humidity) though 25°C is acceptable for non-freaks.
The laptop was used when I got it, so I can't answer how the battery was broken in. I have probably gone through a dozen or so complete discharge/charge cycles, getting approximately 90 minutes use unplugged.
Comments
I wonder how many people realize that charging their cellphone batteries with the car charger is much harder on the battery then charging them at home.
The help section offered no answer.
The menu is most likely hidden somewhere in extras/options/preferences->audi and video setup or something along those lines.
USB, Wireless, Bluetooth, Ethernet?
I suspect, that msn and yahoo can only handle usb cameras.
How many watt hours is your battery supposed to have?
Voltage: 10.8 Chemistry: Li-Ion
Capacity: 4400 mAH
Warranty: 12 Months
No. of Cells: 6
In short: ±100min seems normal to me if you're letting it run @full brightness while downloading some torrents or running CPU-hungry applications, but if you're just browsing the web or playing Solitaire, your battery might have been "weakened" in the past.
Voltage: 10.8 Chemistry: Li-Ion
Capacity: 4400 mAH
Warranty: 12 Months
No. of Cells: 6<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Add a runtime of 100 minutes and your laptops needs an average of 30 Watt, which seems pretty normal.
Batterys age, even when not in use. So depending on when that battery was produced 100 minutes makes perfect sense.
As to Power Schemes, Turn Off Monitor: 1 minute, Turn Off Hard Disks: Never, System Standby: Never
Ultimately, a Li-Ion battery (contrarily to popular belief installed since the days of NiCd) will enjoy being charged as often as possible, even if it's for a few percent. One reason batteries seem to lose performance when constantly attached to the laptop is due to the high temperature of the computer. Another reason is that the counter in Windows freaks out when you never do full cycles. So once every so often, discharge your battery fully.
Cool temperatures are preferred, for both operation and storage. Obviously, too cold (as in freezing) will prevent the battery from working. This is why your camera or your phone appears to die when you go skiing, though this is only temporary.
To store a battery for long periods of time, put it around 40-50ish% charge.
If you live in really warm climate, you can consider putting it in your fridge (ziploc/watch for humidity) though 25°C is acceptable for non-freaks.