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.



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"John Keiser" wrote in message
news:abudncwDwvEECF7YnZ2dnUVZ_oipnZ2d@hawaiiantel. net...
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?

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

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On Feb 2, 2:48 pm, "John Keiser" wrote:
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.

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Remove -NOSPAM- to contact me.

On Fri, 2 Feb 2007 09:48:46 -1000, "John Keiser"
wrote:

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 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