Life of a laptop battery

[stacer]

So how long should one last? I've had my computer 2 years now, and lately it's been shutting me down--without even a low battery warning--after about an hour and 20 minutes of battery time, even though the power thing says I've got 2 hours of life when I start. I run it on battery all the way to the end about once a month, just like I was told to when I bought the computer. I'm getting annoyed at this short battery life. Problem with the battery, you think? Or the computer not knowing that the battery wasn't at full life?

[Rican]

You don’t have a problem other than old age for a battery.  Typical the battery life will only last for a few years.  It graduals gets less efficient and eventually will not hold a charge.  There is a way on certain computer and chargers to drain the battery fully and then recharge it.  It is kind of like formatting the battery.  My chargers for my camera have this feature and so does my computer.  This will allow you to get a little extra life out of the battery.

[EUOL]

I was told  a typical battery loses half of its effectiveness each year.  

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I dunno about that, but I spent three hours last night playing Jedi Outcast by battery before it died. Yay!

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

I think you'll like Jedi Academy better. I know I did.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

no, because I would be unable to play Jedi Acadmey.

[Entsuropi]

The JA Single player was wierd. It was... decent, but felt really amateurish. The JO Single Player had more annoying bits though.

And the JA fighting styles are fun too.

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

Actually JA is just about the same technilogical prose as JO. So go nuts.

[Master Xaio]

I was able to run Jedi Academy, occaisionally a little chunkily, on a 1.8Ghz Celeron (very clunky), 16mb radeon 330m video card (ancient), and 384mb ram.  So you don't need that high-er specs.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I have a PII 600 mhz, so yes, yes I do.