Freezing Li-ion laptop battery to 'wake' it up.

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geekIT

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#295578 7-Apr-2022 17:45

In case someone else finds this info useful, I thought I'd post that I just tried this and it worked. The laptop is a 14" HP that I bought new about 4-5 years back but hadn't used much.

I tried to boot it recently after 18 months of non-use but it would only run on mains power - the battery was totally unresponsive.

As per tips that I found online, I swathed the battery in gladwrap and stuck it a freezer for around 12 hours, then removed it to thaw for another 12 hours.

Put it back in the laptop and it started charging immediately. The laptop now runs on the battery with no problems.

HTH someone :-)

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nitro

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#2898217 7-Apr-2022 18:14

you should add a 'Try it at your own risk' line in there somewhere.

Once a Li-Ion cell has been drained to a low voltage (usually pegged at 2.5V), there is a risk that it has become unstable.

neb

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#2898225 7-Apr-2022 18:20

nitro:
Once a Li-Ion cell has been drained to a low voltage (usually pegged at 2.5V), there is a risk that it has become unstable.

"Unstable" hides a lot of detail about what could happen. If you're going to do this, charge it outdoors away from combustible materials, and run it on battery power under load to check it can safely discharge as well.