Question: How long should a battery last in a notebook? This is a dell latitude d 610 and I have given it a full charge (over 7 hours) in a little over 1 hour it has gone down to 45% and in about 15 min it was at 88%. That just seems extreem to me but I do not know.
what do you think?

Hi,
Thats a really tough one to answer as it often depends so much on how you use your machine, what you have plugged in to it, how old it is and how many charge recharge cycles it has undergone......the number of charges/recharges is finite and performance does reduce with age....
This machine is designed to charge pretty quickly and a charge time of around 60 minutes or so is typical. (from nearly flat to nearly full)
Have a look at this site ...
http://www.dell.com/content/products/produ...;l=en&s=dfb
as it will give you the information as provided by Dell.
A good tip is to remove anything that is plugged in that is not required, PC cards for example are notorious for sapping juice, and to set up your power options to best effect.
A spare battery can be a very useful piece of kit to have, especially if you are a "road warrior"
Personally I have difficulty getting much more than a couple of hours use out of the laptops that I tend to use......but others of course may get more!
Regards
paws

Thanks paws. looking into another battery
I have no idea about how it was used before I got it so I am at a loss there.
I know nothing about a pc card so I will look into it
I have changed the screen brightness to low and got all startup stull to a min. I know of nothing that is "plugged in"
I have only the power cord for it so hey nothing can be plugged in it as I can see.
Thanks for all the info you gave. very helpful! As always