0

My thinkpad has two batteries delivering approximately 200Wh. However the main battery is aging a little, losing its capacity, or so the battery is telling me.

What I wish to accomplish is to "reset" what the battery is telling the computer and override the reported capable energy capacity and have it attempt to charge the batteries to their original energy design, or perhaps overcharge them.

In otherwords, reflecting the data provided below, override "energy-full" and "energy-full-design" to user defined values to force the batteries to charge longer.

$ upower -d
Device: /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0
...
    energy-full:         67.2668 Wh
    energy-full-design:  82.16 Wh

Device: /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT1
...
    energy-full:         76.6344 Wh
    energy-full-design:  93.24 Wh

Later on I am going to physically open the battery encasement and add more battery cells in the free space, so knowing how to override this will be rather useful knowledge.

3
  • 3
    This is dangerous, also it would be a firmware thing. You MIGHT be able to fiddle with some stuff in your BIOS to make this happen, but nothing at an OS level would change how much your battery will charge.
    – Eric Power
    Oct 15, 2015 at 22:16
  • Yes, but Im taking computer engineering and I only paid $30 for the laptop, so no real loss if something does go wrong. Yes, it is a firmware thing, but there has to be a way to modify that firmware from within Nix, or at least override if not rewrite it.
    – AuTo
    Oct 16, 2015 at 23:19
  • No real loss... unless it catches fire and burns your house down. Seriously... I would not attempt this at all.
    – Michael
    Jan 3, 2020 at 0:06

2 Answers 2

2

This sounds really, really dangerous. After all, there is a reason why the engineers who designed the charging system made it respect aging batteries by not charging further!

I seriously discourage you from trying anything like this. A Laptop battery can leave a big mess when exploding. And you don't want that to happen in your lap.

1
  • 1
    Don't worry, its for science and education. Id lose $30 I paid for the laptop if something went wrong.
    – AuTo
    Oct 19, 2015 at 1:51
2

The charging limits related to energy-full-design are implemented in the Li-Ion battery hardware, it is not possible to override them by software. Would be very dangerous indeed.

What you really want to do is to recalibrate your batteries, which may (partially) recover the difference between energy-full-design and energy-full by telling the battery electronics to re-adjust the recorded charge level. Recalibration cannot compensate for wear though.

Install TLP (instructions) and use the commands

    sudo tlp recalibrate BAT0
    sudo tlp recalibrate BAT1

instructions

Refer to the FAQ too.

2
  • Already did this before I posted the message, and modified the settings file to force 100% charge instead of the default 95%. Remember Im going to be adding battery cells to them later on. I need to change these formats anyway. I get 20 hour battery life as it is with my highly customized off-tree kernel that I compiled giving me 200 cpu calls per second tops. @2.8GHz and 40c temps while resting on a blanket. I know what Im doing. Ive just never played around with the battery aspects before. I simply wish to know what to do whether it be editing the battery statfiles, whtevr i2c device I need
    – AuTo
    Oct 19, 2015 at 2:21
  • 1
    Well, the hardware IC design and functionality behind your battery is beyond the scope of this platform. Maybe try on Electrical Engineering, they might cover it. "[I]f your question generally covers […] a specific electronics design problem […] and it is not about […] consumer electronics such as media players, cell phones or smart phones, except when designing these products or modifying their electronics for other uses […] then you're in the right place to ask your question!"
    – ApolloLV
    Oct 19, 2015 at 15:38

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .