Battery

My wife has been complaining about the life on her freebie Toshiba laptop he past couple of months. She has told me many times that she routinely only gets 20 minutes life on the battery (wireless access). I started noting the time and found that she spends a lot more time than 20 minutes on the device...usually at least 45. Well, several days I came home and saw her laptop setting on the counter (we had the carpets cleaned so the laptop has a new temporary home) and one of the lights was pulsing...not flashing like it would if it were charging. I opened the lid and the laptop came to life...it was in sleep mode. Friday and Saturday when I came home, I noticed the exact same thing. I ask my wife about it and she tells me that when the laptop "dies" while she is working, she just plugs it in and then starts doing something else. I then informed her that the laptop goes into sleep mode to save her work and plugging it in does not give the battery full charge unless she lifts the lid and shuts it down properly. The only alternative to that is to turn off sleep mode then you take a chance on hosing Windows. She promised me she would start shutting it down properly but she still is concerned that she getting such poor performance. I then let her in on a secret...I ordered her a slimline battery for the DVD slot. I got noticed that it shipped on Saturday and should arrive by Wednesday. She was very happy. She rarely uses the CD/DVD-ROM so the batter should help her out a lot. Of course, if she does not shut it down correctly, then this will not be of much help but at least she can use the laptop longer without it "dying" in the middle of something.

The nice thing is that the slimline battery cost only $30, so if it does not work out well, then I have not lost much. It is a refurb and that does not really bother me...it was better than plyuning down $60 for a new slimline or $100 for the main battery pack!