My one year old laptop's battery has slowly lost its longevity. At first, with minimal apps running, it could go 4 hours or more. Even under heavy use it was good for 2 hours.
Now, it can barely last an hour. I dim the screen, disable network cards, keep the optical drive empty, and run as few programs as possible, but nothing seems to help.
In case it's relevant, it's a Dell Inspirion, and is NOT affected by the battery recall (though I wish it was now, so I could get a free new battery)
Well, the real problem is that laptop batteries generally suck, but you laptop fuckers keep on buying them. China and Singapore have no motivation to improve them, therefore.
Well, enough on the bitchslapping. I had read some years ago by some battery engineer that he noticed that crystals (of some substance I've forgotten about) built up in the electrolyte of the battery as it aged, and eventually these crystals would short out the battery. He built a simple rig that pulsed a rather high amount of DC voltage into the battery at the opposite polarity, and then noted that the crystal growths were largely destroyed from the surge, and the battery itself was given a new life or second chance. This sort of thing should be fairly easy to replicate at home, at least in the basic elements of the rig. So, if you have a battery and are willing to take a risk with it, build a rig that puts about 3 to 5 times the normal voltage through the battery pack in the opposite of the normal polarity. If the battery is near useless anyway, this should be an OK risk.
Naturally, when messing around with any battery in such a fashion, wear safety glasses and light gloves, to avoid injury in case it ruptures.