Freeze Laptop Battery Myth : Plausible
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So a while back there was a lot of chat here about the plausibility of freezing electronics batteries to restore their "pluck" and the consensus was that you place them in a ziploc freezer bag and freeze them solid for 24 hours (talk about solid-state electronics). So my Toshiba Satellite 1955 (a huge boat anchor of a device from 2002) had extremely dead batteries. They had enough juice to power the behemoth for 30 to 90 seconds at most. After much consideration (about 30 seconds) I decided that I would throw caution to the wind (flatulate in deep thought) and place both batteries in the freezer for 24 hours to see if it would resurrect any capacity at all. Well I'm here to tell you that in my opinion the myth is confirmed and as the mythbusters so often say, is it "Confirmed" or "Plausible". I'd really like to say "Confirmed" but my test group has been so small that all I can scientifically claim is that it's "Plausible" but not confirmed. So if you have laptops with dead/dying batteries that have no juice retention at all "put em' on ice" and see if it helps. For me it has made a difference or at least appears to have made a difference. What I want to know now is how long it will last. Are the batteries good to go for another 2 years? Once they die-out will freezing them have the same effect? Should I pony up at some point and buy some new refurbs for the thing? Decisions, decisions, decisions... Can any of you physics types provide a "plausible" explanation for why this might be? I'm thinking it has something to with the freezing process providing condensation somewhere but I thought that only worked in car type batteries so I'm generally stumped as to understand why freezing would do anything. Let the discussions begin and may the most "plausible" man/woman win. I hope this draws response from L A U R E N it's been a while since we've heard from her and after her being robbed I'm hoping she is doing well. - Rex
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So a while back there was a lot of chat here about the plausibility of freezing electronics batteries to restore their "pluck" and the consensus was that you place them in a ziploc freezer bag and freeze them solid for 24 hours (talk about solid-state electronics). So my Toshiba Satellite 1955 (a huge boat anchor of a device from 2002) had extremely dead batteries. They had enough juice to power the behemoth for 30 to 90 seconds at most. After much consideration (about 30 seconds) I decided that I would throw caution to the wind (flatulate in deep thought) and place both batteries in the freezer for 24 hours to see if it would resurrect any capacity at all. Well I'm here to tell you that in my opinion the myth is confirmed and as the mythbusters so often say, is it "Confirmed" or "Plausible". I'd really like to say "Confirmed" but my test group has been so small that all I can scientifically claim is that it's "Plausible" but not confirmed. So if you have laptops with dead/dying batteries that have no juice retention at all "put em' on ice" and see if it helps. For me it has made a difference or at least appears to have made a difference. What I want to know now is how long it will last. Are the batteries good to go for another 2 years? Once they die-out will freezing them have the same effect? Should I pony up at some point and buy some new refurbs for the thing? Decisions, decisions, decisions... Can any of you physics types provide a "plausible" explanation for why this might be? I'm thinking it has something to with the freezing process providing condensation somewhere but I thought that only worked in car type batteries so I'm generally stumped as to understand why freezing would do anything. Let the discussions begin and may the most "plausible" man/woman win. I hope this draws response from L A U R E N it's been a while since we've heard from her and after her being robbed I'm hoping she is doing well. - Rex
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So a while back there was a lot of chat here about the plausibility of freezing electronics batteries to restore their "pluck" and the consensus was that you place them in a ziploc freezer bag and freeze them solid for 24 hours (talk about solid-state electronics). So my Toshiba Satellite 1955 (a huge boat anchor of a device from 2002) had extremely dead batteries. They had enough juice to power the behemoth for 30 to 90 seconds at most. After much consideration (about 30 seconds) I decided that I would throw caution to the wind (flatulate in deep thought) and place both batteries in the freezer for 24 hours to see if it would resurrect any capacity at all. Well I'm here to tell you that in my opinion the myth is confirmed and as the mythbusters so often say, is it "Confirmed" or "Plausible". I'd really like to say "Confirmed" but my test group has been so small that all I can scientifically claim is that it's "Plausible" but not confirmed. So if you have laptops with dead/dying batteries that have no juice retention at all "put em' on ice" and see if it helps. For me it has made a difference or at least appears to have made a difference. What I want to know now is how long it will last. Are the batteries good to go for another 2 years? Once they die-out will freezing them have the same effect? Should I pony up at some point and buy some new refurbs for the thing? Decisions, decisions, decisions... Can any of you physics types provide a "plausible" explanation for why this might be? I'm thinking it has something to with the freezing process providing condensation somewhere but I thought that only worked in car type batteries so I'm generally stumped as to understand why freezing would do anything. Let the discussions begin and may the most "plausible" man/woman win. I hope this draws response from L A U R E N it's been a while since we've heard from her and after her being robbed I'm hoping she is doing well. - Rex
Rex, if you watch Mythbusters you should know by now the danger in busting a myth and not publishing any detailed results. You need a comparison before and after, timed accurately and under identical conditions and you need to have a control one that you do not freeze. You need to chart it all up and ideally have another one that you freeze repeatedly and run down again to see if it's an incremental effect.
More people died from worry than ever bled to death. - RAH
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So a while back there was a lot of chat here about the plausibility of freezing electronics batteries to restore their "pluck" and the consensus was that you place them in a ziploc freezer bag and freeze them solid for 24 hours (talk about solid-state electronics). So my Toshiba Satellite 1955 (a huge boat anchor of a device from 2002) had extremely dead batteries. They had enough juice to power the behemoth for 30 to 90 seconds at most. After much consideration (about 30 seconds) I decided that I would throw caution to the wind (flatulate in deep thought) and place both batteries in the freezer for 24 hours to see if it would resurrect any capacity at all. Well I'm here to tell you that in my opinion the myth is confirmed and as the mythbusters so often say, is it "Confirmed" or "Plausible". I'd really like to say "Confirmed" but my test group has been so small that all I can scientifically claim is that it's "Plausible" but not confirmed. So if you have laptops with dead/dying batteries that have no juice retention at all "put em' on ice" and see if it helps. For me it has made a difference or at least appears to have made a difference. What I want to know now is how long it will last. Are the batteries good to go for another 2 years? Once they die-out will freezing them have the same effect? Should I pony up at some point and buy some new refurbs for the thing? Decisions, decisions, decisions... Can any of you physics types provide a "plausible" explanation for why this might be? I'm thinking it has something to with the freezing process providing condensation somewhere but I thought that only worked in car type batteries so I'm generally stumped as to understand why freezing would do anything. Let the discussions begin and may the most "plausible" man/woman win. I hope this draws response from L A U R E N it's been a while since we've heard from her and after her being robbed I'm hoping she is doing well. - Rex
I was told by our local supermarket you could keep a chicken in the freezer for up to 3 months. Liars! I put one in and it was dead in the morning.
"More functions should disregard input values and just return 12. It would make life easier." - comment posted on WTF
"This time yesterday, I still had 24 hours to meet the deadline I've just missed today."
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I was told by our local supermarket you could keep a chicken in the freezer for up to 3 months. Liars! I put one in and it was dead in the morning.
"More functions should disregard input values and just return 12. It would make life easier." - comment posted on WTF
"This time yesterday, I still had 24 hours to meet the deadline I've just missed today."
-
So a while back there was a lot of chat here about the plausibility of freezing electronics batteries to restore their "pluck" and the consensus was that you place them in a ziploc freezer bag and freeze them solid for 24 hours (talk about solid-state electronics). So my Toshiba Satellite 1955 (a huge boat anchor of a device from 2002) had extremely dead batteries. They had enough juice to power the behemoth for 30 to 90 seconds at most. After much consideration (about 30 seconds) I decided that I would throw caution to the wind (flatulate in deep thought) and place both batteries in the freezer for 24 hours to see if it would resurrect any capacity at all. Well I'm here to tell you that in my opinion the myth is confirmed and as the mythbusters so often say, is it "Confirmed" or "Plausible". I'd really like to say "Confirmed" but my test group has been so small that all I can scientifically claim is that it's "Plausible" but not confirmed. So if you have laptops with dead/dying batteries that have no juice retention at all "put em' on ice" and see if it helps. For me it has made a difference or at least appears to have made a difference. What I want to know now is how long it will last. Are the batteries good to go for another 2 years? Once they die-out will freezing them have the same effect? Should I pony up at some point and buy some new refurbs for the thing? Decisions, decisions, decisions... Can any of you physics types provide a "plausible" explanation for why this might be? I'm thinking it has something to with the freezing process providing condensation somewhere but I thought that only worked in car type batteries so I'm generally stumped as to understand why freezing would do anything. Let the discussions begin and may the most "plausible" man/woman win. I hope this draws response from L A U R E N it's been a while since we've heard from her and after her being robbed I'm hoping she is doing well. - Rex
-
So a while back there was a lot of chat here about the plausibility of freezing electronics batteries to restore their "pluck" and the consensus was that you place them in a ziploc freezer bag and freeze them solid for 24 hours (talk about solid-state electronics). So my Toshiba Satellite 1955 (a huge boat anchor of a device from 2002) had extremely dead batteries. They had enough juice to power the behemoth for 30 to 90 seconds at most. After much consideration (about 30 seconds) I decided that I would throw caution to the wind (flatulate in deep thought) and place both batteries in the freezer for 24 hours to see if it would resurrect any capacity at all. Well I'm here to tell you that in my opinion the myth is confirmed and as the mythbusters so often say, is it "Confirmed" or "Plausible". I'd really like to say "Confirmed" but my test group has been so small that all I can scientifically claim is that it's "Plausible" but not confirmed. So if you have laptops with dead/dying batteries that have no juice retention at all "put em' on ice" and see if it helps. For me it has made a difference or at least appears to have made a difference. What I want to know now is how long it will last. Are the batteries good to go for another 2 years? Once they die-out will freezing them have the same effect? Should I pony up at some point and buy some new refurbs for the thing? Decisions, decisions, decisions... Can any of you physics types provide a "plausible" explanation for why this might be? I'm thinking it has something to with the freezing process providing condensation somewhere but I thought that only worked in car type batteries so I'm generally stumped as to understand why freezing would do anything. Let the discussions begin and may the most "plausible" man/woman win. I hope this draws response from L A U R E N it's been a while since we've heard from her and after her being robbed I'm hoping she is doing well. - Rex
hey froggy thnx for the concern ... i dont know much about freezing batteries and prolly wouldnt bother unless i couldnt get a new replacement BUT i am doing great thanks ... got all my stuff replaced and all is good ... no harm done and life goes on :)
"mostly watching the human race is like watching dogs watch tv ... they see the pictures move but the meaning escapes them"
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Rex - interesting post. You didn't state how much capacity was restored, or did I misconstrue what you wrote?
Charlie Gilley Will program for food...
I ran it for over an hour and it went down about 20% it seems to be back to where it was originally. I'm curious to see how long it will sustain that though.
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Rex, if you watch Mythbusters you should know by now the danger in busting a myth and not publishing any detailed results. You need a comparison before and after, timed accurately and under identical conditions and you need to have a control one that you do not freeze. You need to chart it all up and ideally have another one that you freeze repeatedly and run down again to see if it's an incremental effect.
More people died from worry than ever bled to death. - RAH
I did post a before/after. Before it would last about 90 seconds and the machine would hard shut off. My other one wasn't frozen and it had the same problem. I waited a week before freezing it. Just pulled it out this morning and it's working great too. It ran for over an hour and only depleted about 20%. Which is why I posted at all. Both batteries were totally trashed and wouldn't run for more than 2 minutes tops. Now in my tests today both ran for the same amount of time and depleted the same amount of energy according to the power meter thing. I left the laptop unused with no programs running. So the load each time was the same. Nice thing about my Toshiba is it will run with no battery so I was able to pull battery one and put battery two in with no shut down. When I get home I'm going to charge each one in the laptop and see how long the charging takes each one. I admit I'm no Jamie and I don't want to be. That's why I just said "plausible" but I'll try to make a good show of it. I really do think there's merit behind the idea. My concerns are... 1. How long will the surge in performance last? (day, week, month, year) 2. Will it work N number of times or is it some diminishing return each time?
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I was told by our local supermarket you could keep a chicken in the freezer for up to 3 months. Liars! I put one in and it was dead in the morning.
"More functions should disregard input values and just return 12. It would make life easier." - comment posted on WTF
"This time yesterday, I still had 24 hours to meet the deadline I've just missed today."
That was just awesome. Good for grins all around.
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It's looking like I can get the original 2 and 3/4 hours out of it again. I'm going to benchmark drain each battery tonight, recharge them and track all of it for the details.
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hey froggy thnx for the concern ... i dont know much about freezing batteries and prolly wouldnt bother unless i couldnt get a new replacement BUT i am doing great thanks ... got all my stuff replaced and all is good ... no harm done and life goes on :)
"mostly watching the human race is like watching dogs watch tv ... they see the pictures move but the meaning escapes them"
Cool and good to hear from you. I'm way to cheap to buy batteries (by necessity) and my current primary laptop I gave up for a client. So I'm without my ax right now. My client really needs one (I really need one too but I had my Satellite as a spare.) Anyway long story... I'm trying it mainly because I thought it'd be interesting. I really wonder how long it will hold up.
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So a while back there was a lot of chat here about the plausibility of freezing electronics batteries to restore their "pluck" and the consensus was that you place them in a ziploc freezer bag and freeze them solid for 24 hours (talk about solid-state electronics). So my Toshiba Satellite 1955 (a huge boat anchor of a device from 2002) had extremely dead batteries. They had enough juice to power the behemoth for 30 to 90 seconds at most. After much consideration (about 30 seconds) I decided that I would throw caution to the wind (flatulate in deep thought) and place both batteries in the freezer for 24 hours to see if it would resurrect any capacity at all. Well I'm here to tell you that in my opinion the myth is confirmed and as the mythbusters so often say, is it "Confirmed" or "Plausible". I'd really like to say "Confirmed" but my test group has been so small that all I can scientifically claim is that it's "Plausible" but not confirmed. So if you have laptops with dead/dying batteries that have no juice retention at all "put em' on ice" and see if it helps. For me it has made a difference or at least appears to have made a difference. What I want to know now is how long it will last. Are the batteries good to go for another 2 years? Once they die-out will freezing them have the same effect? Should I pony up at some point and buy some new refurbs for the thing? Decisions, decisions, decisions... Can any of you physics types provide a "plausible" explanation for why this might be? I'm thinking it has something to with the freezing process providing condensation somewhere but I thought that only worked in car type batteries so I'm generally stumped as to understand why freezing would do anything. Let the discussions begin and may the most "plausible" man/woman win. I hope this draws response from L A U R E N it's been a while since we've heard from her and after her being robbed I'm hoping she is doing well. - Rex
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Did you recharge them immediately after taking them out of the freezer or did you wait until they warmed up a bit before recharging them? Cheers, David
I let them sit for about 2 or 3 hours after taking them out. I wanted them room temp with no moisture on them at all.
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So a while back there was a lot of chat here about the plausibility of freezing electronics batteries to restore their "pluck" and the consensus was that you place them in a ziploc freezer bag and freeze them solid for 24 hours (talk about solid-state electronics). So my Toshiba Satellite 1955 (a huge boat anchor of a device from 2002) had extremely dead batteries. They had enough juice to power the behemoth for 30 to 90 seconds at most. After much consideration (about 30 seconds) I decided that I would throw caution to the wind (flatulate in deep thought) and place both batteries in the freezer for 24 hours to see if it would resurrect any capacity at all. Well I'm here to tell you that in my opinion the myth is confirmed and as the mythbusters so often say, is it "Confirmed" or "Plausible". I'd really like to say "Confirmed" but my test group has been so small that all I can scientifically claim is that it's "Plausible" but not confirmed. So if you have laptops with dead/dying batteries that have no juice retention at all "put em' on ice" and see if it helps. For me it has made a difference or at least appears to have made a difference. What I want to know now is how long it will last. Are the batteries good to go for another 2 years? Once they die-out will freezing them have the same effect? Should I pony up at some point and buy some new refurbs for the thing? Decisions, decisions, decisions... Can any of you physics types provide a "plausible" explanation for why this might be? I'm thinking it has something to with the freezing process providing condensation somewhere but I thought that only worked in car type batteries so I'm generally stumped as to understand why freezing would do anything. Let the discussions begin and may the most "plausible" man/woman win. I hope this draws response from L A U R E N it's been a while since we've heard from her and after her being robbed I'm hoping she is doing well. - Rex
What battery technology is your battery? Li-poly, Li-ion, Ni-mh, Ni-cad?
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Did you recharge them immediately after taking them out of the freezer or did you wait until they warmed up a bit before recharging them? Cheers, David
charging cold is really hard on the components if it will do it at all. I have a rugged laptop (dead battery atm). It's docs say 3x(?) slower charging at 40F vs 70F, and it won't charge at all much below that. IIRC safety cutoff.
-- Help Stamp Out and Abolish Redundancy The preceding is courtesy of the Department of Unnecessarily Redundant Repetition Department.