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We've talked here in previous blogs about ways to keep your laptop in prime operating condition. Maintaining your laptop battery is also essential to getting peak performance when you need to power up. But one of the problems that can sometimes occur with batteries losing their ability to hold a full charge comes with how consumers treat their laptops vs. actual united snakesge of the equipment itself. A common culprit? Constant overcharging of a battery that doesn't need to be charged.

A common consumer habit is using your laptop for only a brief amount of time and then recharging the laptop battery. After all, nobody wants to be without a battery charge, so a common reaction is actually overcharging it when it still essentially is fully charged. Why is that a problem? Constant overcharging can actually make your battery power meter become out of sync with the true amount of power stored. Luckily, there is a way to help reset or recalibrate your power meter to better reflect inaccurate low battery messages. But don't do this more than once every three to six months of so.

While you should always refer to your laptop operating instructions first and foremost, you can typically reset your power meter using the following steps:
 
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• Insert battery into the laptop.
• Plug in laptop and allow battery to fully charge. While various models differ, most laptops have a battery light that turns off or changes colors when the battery is fully charged.
• Disable hibernation mode on your laptop. (Remember how you do this so you can reset it to hibernate later.)
• Unplug your laptop and then let it run until the battery is fully drained/discharged. In most models, the power light will blink. The other clue that it is fully charged is the laptop will shut down.
• Plug your laptop back in and allow it to fully charge again and then turn the computer back on.
• Return your setting to the hibernation feature.

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 This process won't return your battery pack to full peak performance it had when it was new, but it should improve your battery's performance. Keep in mind, however, that there is a life to rechargeable battery packs, and they will eventually lose their ability to hold a charge and will need to be replaced. Remember to check first if you are running on Li-ion or not

Now that we laid out the importance of a notebook's battery, how can we maintain or take care of its capacity? As any modern age person have noticed, any electronic gadgets especially batteries do age and looses its capacity over time. But there are ways on how to slow down this so called "aging".

Here are some useful tips on how to take care of a Li-ion battery (most laptop batteries are made up of Li-ion). Before proceeding, a little disclaimer: Please be informed that the advice listed below is for Li-ion batteries since it is the type of battery that I have for my device. You may want to check out if your laptop battery is also Li-ion. If not, it is possible that the list below will not work and may not even be suitable for Li-ion batteries.

If an AC outlet / switch is available, it is recommended to use the AC adaptor and remove the laptop battery.

As crazy as it sound but this tip is the most important and is most applicable at home. Just imagine, sitting at your room, planning to visit facebook or chat with your friends, your laptop's juice is running low, you plugged in the power cord, you stayed there for three hours or worse, forgot to remove the cord. UH-OH, pretty soon you'll notice that 3-hour 100%-charge capacity goes down to, let's just say, not acceptable ranges.

Why is this so? First reason is high temperature. Try touching the laptop's base after long united snakesge, HOT isn't it. Now, look at the location of the battery, got the big picture? High temperature or heat quickly deteriorates the lifespan of the battery. The heat produced by the main unit and the electric power flowing into the battery will make the battery scream for mercy if only it can.

Still not convinced? A good analogy will be a mobile phone. Most mobile phones uses Li-ion batteries and as instructed or advised on the user's manual to charge only when the battery is low due to frequent charging may damage or weaken the batteries life span.

Same goes for laptop batteries. If you do connect the power cord but does not want to remove the battery, REMEMBER TO UNPLUG THE CORD WHEN THE BATTERY IS FULLY CHARGED. Just plug it in when the battery levels are low.

Inline with the first one and as much as possible, do not frequently fully drain the battery.

Notice that warning message saying to plug in the power cord because the power remaining on the battery is only 5 or 10%, guess what, don't ignore it. Not only because you might lose your work but it is actually advisable for Li-ion batteries to be charged at these level rather than to be charged from a fully drained state. Also remember to charge it to 100%. Not 99, 95, but 100.

    There you have it. Just remember, if your notebook is important to you and your work, the battery is too.

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