Laptop battery wearing down? In this week's episode of Upgrade Your Life, Yahoo! News' Becky Worley shows us how to help batteries last longer ... and what to do when they run out!Most laptops use batteries that can last for 3-5 years, or about 1000 charges. (A premium laptop's battery might last longer.) Every time you charge your battery, the total capacity of the battery is diminished. Originally it may have had a run time of 3.5 hours, but after a year it'll run out of juice at 3 hours, even on a full charge.If your battery capacity has diminished, there are a few things you can do about it. First, you have to correctly gauge how much capacity has been lost. There are free downloads to do this job, like Battery Bar (for Windows PCs) or Coconut Battery (for Macs). These will compare your battery's current maximum capacity to how long it lasted when it was new. (UPDATE- we originally recommended Battery Eater and while the program works great, their download site has been compromised and we are recommending an alternate program, Battery Bar downloadable from CNET.)

You can't miraculously reconstitute your battery's capacity. It loses power over time due to chemical reactions taking place in the battery, as it chugs along powering your laptop. You can't undo those changes, but there is one common battery issue you can fix: In many laptops, the operating system's battery meter gets out of sync with how much juice the battery actually has.Imagine if the gas gauge on your car dashboard was misreading how much gas you actually had in the tank. You'd either run out of gas when you thought you had a quarter of a tank left, or you'd be filling up too frequently. In your laptop, this can mean your laptop shuts down abruptly when the meter says you have 30 minutes left. Or else the meter might warn that you only have 2 minutes of battery life left and shut your laptop down, when it really has another 20 minutes remaining.Recalibrating gets the battery meter to correctly read the current state of the battery, so you and the operating system know where you stand with existing battery life.

First, charge your laptop's battery to full, and leave it that way for at least two hours. Then unplug your laptop, and set its power management settings to never turn off or lower the monitor brightness. Prom Dresses In Jupiter Florida(HP has instructions for how do to this on Windows 7 and Vista, as well as Windows XP, while Apple has instructions for Mac laptops on their site.)Boscov'S Bedroom FurnitureYou want to drain the battery completely, then let your laptop sit for at least five hours this way -- like, say, overnight. Lenovo Laptop T410 Specs(Just be careful and mute the volume, since some laptops make a warning sound when they're about to run out.) Afterwards, charge it up again, and you should notice a more accurate portrayal of your battery capacity.

In some cases, you may even get more life out of it.Best practices to maintain battery lifeYou'd think that the best way to keep your laptop's battery from wearing out is to not use it. As it turns out, batteries are like muscles; they need to be worked out regularly to stay healthy. Ideally, you'd use your laptop unplugged at least once a day, like on a train or bus commute or on the couch in front of the TV. If you're not going to use it, constantly charging your battery is a bad idea; HP recommends on their website that if you're going to leave your laptop plugged in or put up in storage for more than two weeks, you should take the battery out of your laptop.So when is it time to throw out that old battery? The answer, surprisingly, is "never." Laptop batteries contain lots of toxic chemicals, and should never end up in landfills. has a list of environmentally responsible recyclers that will take your old battery with no fuss.When is it time to replace your battery, then? Use the free utility apps Becky mentioned, and when they say that your battery can only hold around 25% of its original capacity it's probably time for a new one.

Owners of newer Mac laptops can get their laptop's non-removable battery swapped out at any Apple store, with a scheduled appointment.This information is for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 based laptops. What do I do if I am not able to charge my laptop battery when the power adapter plugged in (laptop battery not charging problem). Sometimes, with a good battery and a good power adapter, your laptop won’t charge battery. This method does not work for all battery not charging issues, but please try to follow the following instructions to fix your charging issue. If this method does not work, you should try to replace your laptop battery or your power adapter. 1. Please go to “Control Panel” Click the start button, then locate the Control Panel. For Windows 8 and up, please move your mouse cursor to the left bottom edge, then do a right click. This will bring up a menu. Please locate Control Panel, and click. 2. If your control panel does not look same as the picture above, please change your control panel view to “Classic View” or “Small Icons”.

3. Find and click “System” then please locate “Device Manager”. For Windos XP, please locate a menu tab titled “Hardware” and click it. Under the Hardware menu, you will see the Device Manager. For Windows Vista, 7, and 8 please click the “Device Manager” on the left side menu. 4. Please click “Battery” and under Battery, please click “Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery”. Now, do a right click on it, then click “Uninstall”. Confirm that you would like to uninstall the Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery. 5. After the uninstallation process, please restart your computer. 6. As soon as you restart your computer, the Windows will automatically install the driver again. Please check your battery icon on the right bottom side of your Windows screen to see if it is charging. 1. The method did not work? here is one more thing you can try. Please drain your laptop battery perfectly and then try again. 2. Do not know how to drain your laptop battery ?