(Related to this post where I showed evidence of the Dell battery conspiracy.)

This seems to work at reviving my dead NiMH laptop battery. So, just in case any other Dell laptop owners search for help with their machine, I thought I’d post this.

  1. Run computer completely down. This includes powering up the computer again after it automatically goes into standby/hibernate.
  2. Ensure that one cannot turn on the computer by pressing the power button.
  3. Pull the battery partially out of the bay. Plug in the AC adapter.
  4. Turn on the power button, then (as quickly as you can) slap in the battery and almost simultaneously unplug the AC adapter.
  5. Let computer run until it dies. I use memtest to ensure that the operating system doesn’t corrupt itself when it crashes.
  6. Repeat steps 3-5 about five times or so, then charge the battery completely.
  7. Use computer from battery as much as possible for the next three power cycles.
  8. Repeat this whole process again

So far I’ve reclaimed about 46 minutes from my battery.

Note: this does put a lot of stress on the battery. I’m only doing this because my battery was giving me 15-30 minutes of useable life. Be warned, you could kill the battery entirely if you overstress it.
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