Testing your laptop battery

Nothing is as annoying as turning on your laptop computer, ready to do some work, only to find out that the battery is dead. This is particularly annoying when you are somewhere where you can’t charge your battery. Did you know there is more than one way to check if your laptop battery is charged? This will avoid getting caught in a situation where you are left staring at a dark screen when you should be working.

I know what you’re thinking. Can’t I simply just plug in my laptop to see if it is charged? Sure, you can do that. But what if you find an extra laptop battery and you want to know whether it still holds a charge? There are a variety of ways to test your laptop batteries to find out whether they are charged or not.
Before you get started on this battery testing experiment, you are going to need a couple of things. First, you’ll need something called a multi-meter. Then, you’ll need a test light, a battery charger and a battery tester. For each of these items, there is a different method of testing your laptop battery.
Multi-meter
If you choose this method of testing, attach the battery to the multi-meter. To do this, connect the battery’s positive port to one end of the meter and the negative port to the other end. The multi-meter will give a reading that indicates whether there is a charge left in the battery and how much.
Test light
The first order of business here is to make sure that the test light actually works. If it doesn’t, you won’t be able to use it to accurately test the charge in a battery, obviously. To test this, connect the light to the positive port of a fully-charged the battery. If it is working, the light will glow. Then you can do the same procedure on a battery whose charge level you are not sure of. If the light glows this time, the battery has a charge in it.
Battery charger
Another, very simple method of checking whether a battery is charged is to simply place it in the charger. If it light on the charger indicates the battery is fully charged, you’ll know there is power there. If it indicates that further charging is required, you’ll know what to do.
Battery tester
Another way to test the charge in your battery is to use a battery tester. Place the battery in the tester, ensuring that the positive and negative ports are securely connected to the tester. This will give you a clear indication of the level of charge in the battery.
Never again get caught with a dead battery at an inopportune moment. Test your batteries before you head out using any of these methods and you will know whether you need to charge them up or not. This is a great idea if you have more than one laptop battery, so you don’t have to keep changing them all out to test them in your computer. If you find that your batteries aren’t holding a charge much anymore, it may be time to recycle them. A company such as Sure Power is a good place to look for recycling programs, or you can contact your local waste company to find out about any battery recycling programs that may be in your area.