Apparently, my battery is dying. As you can see in the photo, my computer is proudly displaying the fact that my battery is “reaching the end of its usable life.” I’m not sure what that means, but boy would I like to know more.
Unfortunately, when I click on that little weird box that does not look like any other information dialog on my computer, it simply disappears. Is this Dell warning me that something really bad is about to happen to my battery, or are they just giving a simple nudge that maybe the support team at work should ship me a new one, on the double? Alternatively, is this a sign of malicious activity on my machine?
Well I just don’t know. Weird little non-modal appear-at-random-times popup friend, who are you? And what do you really mean to tell me?
2 responses to “Hello strange little popup friend”
if you were using ubuntu you’d get a message like this
“Your battery has very low capacity (X%), which means that it may be old or broken”
my new T61p has a cool battery life extender feature now. I’ve been working with lithium batteries at work so I’ve learned a lot about optimal conditions for extending life of the battery. the two most important things to extending battery life are storing the battery at low temperatures (room temp or less) and not storing the battery at a full charge. optimal condition for battery storage is a 40% charge in your fridge. since my T40 would keep my battery fully charged all the time and the battery would get warm while it was on, I started taking my T61 battery out when I wasn’t planning on being mobile. after a couple times of using the laptop with and without the batteries, a message popped up saying they noticed what I was doing with the battery and gave me two options: 1) fully charge battery when laptop is connected to outlet, or 2) start charging when battery drops below certain capacity and stop when it goes above certain capacity (can be user specified). now I can feel more comfortable leaving my battery in the computer knowing it won’t be fully charged. I’m not sure if this is a windows feature or lenovo feature, but +2 points to whoever designed it. I