Completely discharging a laptop battery

Factual Questions
1

Okay, I have a craptacular HP laptop with an even less impressive battery. The “Series Model” is HSTNN-DB04.

I don’t know if the thing is just a dead paperweight, or if it has picked up such a stubbon memory that it just doesn’t want to charge. I’ve actually bumped my power cable and had the laptop go off because the batter is quite literally totally gone.

So…is there a way to test to see if it has just picked up a memory or if it is truly a paperweight.

My voltmeter is dead, so I can’t probe the terminals. I was figuring I would try to put a fan to it (12VDC fan, 14.8VDC battery) and see if I could discharge it the rest of the way.

Thing is, I don’t know which terminals (there seem to be about 8) I should try it on, and I don’t want to do anything TOO stupid.

So, anyone have any suggestions?

-Joe

2

Your laptop (and most other modern laptops) use a Li-ion battery, which are not subject to the “memory effect”. Also, the logic in your laptop’s charging circuit is fairly sophisticated, and is designed to keep your battery in good health as long as possible. If your battery is not holding a charge at all, it could either be defective (maybe internally shorted) or just completely worn out. In either case, the best solution would be to find a replacement battery.

Ebay lists batteries for your laptop, though check the seller reviews before ordering, since these are generally non-OEM items.