I rarely use my newish Toshiba A55. I keep it unplugged and put the main battery in the refrigertor. When I boot up once a month using the power cord, the NiCad CMOS battery has died and I need to reset the date in BIOS. Would replacing the CMOS battery help or is this about as long as I should expect under these conditions? Thanks.
I'll guess that once a month for a short time is not enough to keep the CMOS battery charged. How about plugging it in for a full day, once a month?
Keeping a battery in the refrigerator is an old "wise tale". It actualy does more harm than good. The best way to use a rechargeable battery is to keep using it through its normal working cycles.
In any case, the maximum life span of a rechargeable battery will be about 3 to 5 years, or about a thousand charge cyles no matter what. leaving a rechareable battery discharged is also not healthy for it. The chemcicals inside the makeup of the battery will eventualy eat away at the inner construction, and maybe cause some oxidiation on the contact surfaces of what the battery is made out of, and they too will also degrade with age.
If a battery is allowed to be frozen, such as putting it in the freezer, it can be permanently damaged. Lead acid batteries in the discharged state will be quickly damaged in sub-zero conditions.
I would suggest to use the battery and to not let it be in the discharged state for very long.
Jerry Greenber
I would expect more than a month from it. Are you sure you're turning the computer off, not putting it in standby?
There's no harm in leaving the laptop plugged in all the time when you're not using it. The charging circuit in modern laptops is smart enough to keep the battery fully charged while not over charging it. Even if you remove the battery, you can leave the laptop plugged in. Andy Cuffe
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