Dell Latitude L400 - Manual (Page 12)

Do not dispose of these batteries along with household waste. Contact your local waste disposal agency for the address of the nearest battery
deposit site.
About Battery Power
You automatically conserve battery power each time you connect the computer to an electrical outlet. The battery is even being recharged when
you use AC power. The battery's life expectancy is largely determined by the number of charges it receives, so use an electrical outlet to run the
computer whenever possible.
You can customize power management by individually controlling the computer's power conservation features . These features reduce power
consumption by monitoring application programs and computer devices for inactivity and slowing down or stopping some of the computer ’s
internal devices.
Experiment with power conservation features to achieve the optimum power conservation for your work environment.
Battery Auto-Learning Utility
The Battery Auto-Learning utility, available through the system setup program, helps maintain battery gauge accuracy on your Latitude L400
computer.
The utility allows the battery to learn its full charge capacity. The computer uses the full charge capacity value to determine the length of time that
the battery can operate on a single charge. An incorrect full charge capacity value causes the computer to report the remaining battery life
incorrectly to the operating system, which may result in shorter than expected battery life.
To run the utility, use the Run Battery Learning option on the Power screen of the system setup program .
Turning On the Computer
To turn on the computer, press the power button .
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NOTES: When you use power conservation features, you often trade some of the performance of the computer for increased battery
operating time. For example, if you turn off the hard-disk drive, you may experience a delay the next time the computer tries to access
the hard-disk drive.
Other power conservation features, such as suspend (or standby ) mode, stop almost all system activity. They allow you to maximize
power conservation when your work is interrupted.
NOTE: The full charge capacity may vary among batteries and may decrease as the battery goes through multiple charge and
discharge cycles.
NOTES: The learning process may take up to six hours to complete. You can stop the process at any time by pressing .
Use the utility if you suspect that the accuracy of the gauge is incorrect. However, do not run the utility more than once every two
months—running the utility more often reduces the service life of the battery.
NOTES: If your computer's operating system is "locked up"—that is, it does not respond to commands—press and hold down the power
button for at least five seconds to turn off the computer.
If the operating system locks up and does not respond to the power button, you can restart the computer using the reset switch on the
bottom of the computer. To do so, straighten a paper clip and press it into the
reset switch access hole for about one second.