Jul
16
2008
Quick Fix: Bring Laptop Batteries Back From The Dead
Posted by: deathshadow391 in Technology, tags: Battery, Hardware Fix, Quick Fix
The sad truth for many laptop owners is that sooner or later, your laptop battery will stop holding a charge. As one of these people, I’ve been searching for a way to revive my dead battery, without having to open it up. I have found that freezing a battery for a few hours is supposed to bring it back up to around 70% of it’s original capacity. Here’s the method I used:
- Take your battery and place it into two or three Ziploc bags ( Just in case for some reason it starts to leak). Place it on top of a small towel inside of your freezer and let it sit for 13 hours.
- After the 13 hours have passed, remove your battery from the freezer and pat it down with a towel until its room temperature.
THIS IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT! CHARGING A FROZEN BATTERY WILL RESULT IN A THERMAL RUNAWAY CASCADE AND CAUSE YOUR BATTERY TO EXPLODE!!! - Once at Room Temperature, completely charge and drain your battery for 4 cycles.
Easy as that! I tried this with my dead Toshiba battery and it went from holding a 5 Minute charge to an hour long charge.
Do you have any other battery success stories? Post yours in the comments!
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is it dangerous?
Only if you charge the battery before it reaches room temperature.
So potentially dangerous…
Great tip, will use on my old Toshiba battery that dies in pretty much 15 - 25 minutes.
What “coldness” setting should our freezer be at? You know the dial that goes from 1-10,usually.
How do you know when the battery is room temperature? do i wait about an hour?
If anybody tried this please let me know
its fucking dangerous
i wish i could revive my old acer laptop battery ! it cant handle more then 5 minutes lol
This is an attempt to reduce the internal resistance of the cells which is caused by crystals growing on the poles of each cell and will not work. The Putting them in the freezer is not dangerous as long as the battery is in a leakproof wrapping - the danger is to the foodstuffs from contaminates. Reducing the temperature has the effect of increasing the resistance. Overheating the battery on the otherhand will cause the cell to burst or explode as the gas (caused by fast charging) tries to escape. It is possible to electronically release the crystals from the cells without opening them but is NOT 100% effective and may only prolong what is probably an exhausted battery caused by poor charge / discharge management. Not this is for NICAD or Nickel Cadmium cells. Lithium Ion turns to a Jelly that doesn’t work anymore and Nickel Metal Hydride may not respond to the same treatment. The process involves Pulsing the individual Cells with a high current charge which in some cases has removed some of the crystals. Please note …. INDIVIDUAL CELLS. An example would be to momentarily (half a second MAXIMUM) connect the cell to a Car Battery or other 12v High Current DC source. Connecting +ve (positive) of the car battery to the +ve of the cell and similarly -ve (negative) to the negative of the car battery. (Half a second Pulse MAXIMUM) no more or the battery will explode!!! Then gently charge the battery for 14 hours then discharge fully then charge gently again. It may prolong the battery usefullness.
It is better to start saving for a NEW battery from a reliable source.
INDIVIDUAL CELLS means having to dismantle the battery pack. This usually will render the whole thing useless if not done by a professional. For example NICAD cells are 1.2v each when fully charged and 12 would give 14.4 Volts. Other cell chemicals like LI (Lithium Ion) etc can give 2V similar to Lead Acid. As I recommended in previous post. Buy a new battery and dispose of the old one sensibly.