Charging, Battery and Power-Saving Tips

When you first break your shiny new HP Mini Note out of the Box you have sevral options as to what you do first;

1. Charge The MiniNote fully.
2. Charge The MiniNote for a couple of hours.

It is not recommended that you use the MiniNote during the the first charge.

The MiniNote comes with a lithium-ion battery, so there's no need to fully drain the battery while charging. The MiniNote will Take about Hours to charge to full from and empty battery.

If the battery is fully charged you can remove the battery and use the charger as power source as long as there is a power outlet nearby.

Note: This applies to the linux unit with the 3 cell battery.

With the Via C7 Processor The Battery will last at maximum power output (bluetooth, wifi, brightest screen setting, etc) This figure will decrease according to external USB devices that are attached to the MiniNote. It can also be increased by lowing brightness and turning off wiki, etc.

We Expect to see a larger battery to appear on the market quite quickly after the release of the MiniNote.

Allthough Li-Ion batteries come with a 'NO-memory-effect' (the effect of losing battery life when not being fully decharged before recharge in the old Cd batteries); they do run out like any other battery out there.

The phenomenon 'weardown' applies whenever a battery after it has been used to the extent that 80% of it's initial capacity is still Remianing.

The time, before the 'weardown' phenomenon takes place is estimated to be arround 1 year of continuous use (charging/decharging), or 2-2,5 years in normal use (depending on how the battery is been used).

Weardown happens gradually over the course of the battery's life span. Once the 80% mark has been reached, the battery will further lower in life and performance, and it will be clear to the user that it's performance isn't quite as good as it once was.

When You haven't used the battery for a very long time, or when the battery is close to being empty it will need to be recharged.

It is important to recharge the battery before it's completely empty (Dead battery)! If your battery is dead, it will be very hard or impossible to recharge/recover the battery again, since Li-Ion batteries require a charge voltage to exist in order to start charging.

Your best bet is to plug in the AC, and try to recharge the battery. It's Possible the MiniNote won't recognise the battery.

If it does recognise the battery, the recharging process could be a long one;you may need days of charging To restore the battery full functionallity again; (if you could ever get back to that state)

Your battery has an internal cpu(stored in the battery hardware), that will:

• keep track of recharge cycles: which will make sure every cell has been charged equally (so that not one will be continuously balasted and suffer of 'weardown' but a 'rotation cycle' of internal cells will be done).
• do voltage measuring: a probe for internal charge load.

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=11241
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=9148
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=153748

• Reduce screen brightness as low as possible (Use Fn+F4 if you need to increase it).
• Turn of the wireless network when you are not using it.
• Mute the speakers when you are not using sound.
• If you're not using wired LAN, you could disable it in the BIOS. Remember to enable it before plugging in an ethernet cable, or you'll wonder why you can't access the net!
• If you're not using the webcam, disable it in the BIOS.
• Adjust screensaver settings.
• Close the lid
• To increase battery life from weardown-effect (see above), when using the MiniNote, use the AC adaptor as much as possible!
• Refrain from charging the battery when you don't use the Minnote, unless you know you'll need the battery soon. Meaning: DON'T keep the MiniNote continuously connected to the AC adapter.

http://wiki.eeeuser.com/guidebooks:charging

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=9053