Nickel-Metal Hydride battery

i've got a laptop (compusa, 400 mhz, 32 MB RAM) with a Nickel-Metal Hydride battery. I charge it to 100% and then just run it on battery power. well , it only lasts for about 45 minutes on battery before it gets to 10%. Is this normal. I realize its not a Lithion Ion battery and won't last as long. I need to tell my boss something by tomorrow. I think he expects it to run on battery for 2-3 hours. I've put the same battery in another compusa and pretty much the same. I've used diff. batteries on another compusa, same.

Nikel Metal Hydrate has 2 issues that you need to keep in mind.

First, it does not keep a charge long.. 45 minutes is good dependant on what your doing.

Second, NicMh also develops memory, tell your user to completly drain the battery before charging and to remove the battery when plugged in (even if battery is at full power)

Ion Lithum batteries are better. They last longer (i get about 2 1/2 hours of text editing/surfing out of mine or 45 mins intensive gaming) and Ion lithum is not has prone to memory. they are however 2 - 3 times more expensive

Tell your user that 45 minutes is more than likely all hell get. (the company always says the battery lasts longer than it really does). If he needs better, sell him an Ion Lithum or a second NicMh.

It is possible with some NMH batteries to "refresh" the memory. My camcorder has this on the charger and it makes a huge difference in the amount of charge that it holds as well as the run time. As Matridom says, you have to discharge it completely for it to accept a full charge. To prevent data corruption on your lappy, I recommend using a light bank like the ones used for discharging remote control car batteries. They work well and auto bulbs are cheap.

[quote]Originally posted by Gameguru:
<strong>It is possible with some NMH batteries to "refresh" the memory. My camcorder has this on the charger and it makes a huge difference in the amount of charge that it holds as well as the run time. As Matridom says, you have to discharge it completely for it to accept a full charge. To prevent data corruption on your lappy, I recommend using a light bank like the ones used for discharging remote control car batteries. They work well and auto bulbs are cheap.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Your "refresh" that you camcorder uses is nothing more than completly discharging the battery an recharging it. It may do it several times.

IMHO, Ion Lithum is currently the best battery technology on the market for laptop batteries.