[Valkillmore]

I know that the ions within the battery are liable to permanently change composition, but I was wondering if there was any way of restoring the battery to at least some operational state. I don't really feel like buying a new laptop if I'm just going to be using it for word processing/music at school, but this damn Toshiba CDS2105 battery just won't work. Heh, well, I may as well add that the battery is officially 10 years old. I've brought this laptop back from death before, I stumbled upon it in my basement and found out it was my dad's old business notebook. Put a spiffy install of Win98 and had to figure out some audio driver issues, but all is well now...except for the battery. I didn't start having operational issues with it until mid way through last year, so maybe there is hope yet.

[Captain Helghas]

Umm... Sort of.

Once Li-ion batteries die, they're dead. Also, once Lithium batteries die, they're dead. Notice the difference between Li-ion and just Li. They are different batteries. If you're laptop battery is 10 years old, it is probably a Li battery.

Here's the difference:
Both batteries us Lithium Molybdium Oxide to store charge, Li_yMoO₂. That's one electrode.
The other electrode is different for the two batteries. Li batteries us Li metal as the second electrode. When Li plates onto this electrode after recharging it can create little spikes of Lithium called dendrites. These dendrites can grow to span the distance between the two electrodes and short the battery, and death.
For Li-ion batteries the other electrode is porous carbon. Since Li is not being reduced the dendrite problem is no longer there. However, Li can absorb permanently(-ish) into the carbon lattice, and thus reduce the amount of charge the battery can produce. Multiply this effect over 10 years of recharging and you see how the Li-Ion batteries die.

On a technical note, you can open the battery pack and replace the batteries in there with good ones. Now you've got a working battery pack.

[Valkillmore]

Well, Toshiba's website claims it is a Li-ion Graphite battery pack...so I'm not exactly sure whether that is a true Li-ion or a strictly Li battery as you have suggested. The pack can maintain power for ~2 minutes but then the system fails. If I were to replace the batteries, what is your suggested course of action? I don't really have anything to lose from the looks of it besides a couple bucks maybe, and I think it's worth a shot and at the very least it will be a good educational experience.

P.S. - This is the model. http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/t...ceghdgngdgnj.0

[the adam]

here is a how-to http://www.electronics-lab.com/artic...uct/index.html

the batteries are probably worth more than the laptop though You can probably crack open the battery and see what type of batteries it uses and then try to find those same cells or something equivalent on google.

[Bender]

I have a Sony 505 from 1997 and it had a bad battery. What I did was locate the proper cells to rebuild the battery. Most laptops use 18650 size cells. The origional lithium ion battery for my sony was 1550mah but I was able to get 2600mah LG brand cells from batteryspace.com I now get 3-4 hours use depending on if I use my wireless card or not.

[the adam]

you might want to follow the thread about "bringing batteries back to life" and see if it works.

[Captain Helghas]

Originally Posted by Valkillmore

Well, Toshiba's website claims it is a Li-ion Graphite battery pack...so I'm not exactly sure whether that is a true Li-ion or a strictly Li battery as you have suggested.

Graphite is a type of porous carbon. A cheap kind.