Laptop Battery

[sooz07]

I have been told to charge my battery for my laptop fully for the first time. There is no indication in the manuals of how long I should charge it up for. I have just bought a Samsung laptop. How long should I charge the battery for the first time? Do I need to have my battery in the laptop if I am going to just plug the laptop in?

[scotgal]

I think it probably just means plugging your laptop into the mains to start with to get the battery going. I've a small icon at the bottom of my screen which tells me how much power is in the battery.

[ACtheTROLL]

It's quite important to charge the battery fully BEFORE you use the kit for the first time (I know .... it's torture when a new toy arrives)
on a Lappy ... 24 hours .. phones 12-18 hours (ish)

it depends on the kit ... all PDA and smartphones have "active" power management - only some laptops do ...

with active - the first time you switch on the thingy looks to see what it looks like full.
from that point your battery life gauge works from that value.

so if you switch on then charge ... the partial value is called "full" the fully charged value is called ????
and the gauge doesn't know what it's talking about
(that's why so many people "surprisingly" run out of juce - that and forgetting ;-)

Passive is built to "know" that that mobo needs however many mA to run ... so it's like a simple battery tester when the current drops ... it calculates from fixed values so it's not as important

... LiLon batteries are charged to a "storage capacity" (about 25%) by the Mfrs and then sit on a shelf ... for however long ....
to "wake up" the battery it's best to fill it to the top before putting a first time load on it - after that .... as long as you don't leave it completely empty ... you can charge discharge pretty much however you want.

[JCo2009]

as above, not all laptops are like this but to be safe charge up for the 24hr. most laptop now there ready from the box just aslong you put the plug in also. i know this sort of thing has come up alot with problems setting up O.S but the major companys got onto it around 3yrs ago now and sorted out the software in the way the laptop boots up on its first time.
be safe plug in and charge for min of 12hrs from out of box!
regards,
Jay

[sooz07]

Thanks for your help. I am going to leave the battery to charge for 24 hours, just to be on the safe side. Thanks everyone