I recently purchased a new laptop (Toshiba M45-S265). It came with a 4300 mAh lithium battery. The laptop seems to be fine except for one issue. When turned off and unplugged with the battery installed, the battery consistently discharges at a rate of about 3.5 percent per day, leaving the Compaq HSTNN-LB09 Battery totally discharged within 20 to 30 days. I am aware that batteries lose charge over time, but this seems to be far in excess of anything I have previously experienced. After [the battery's] being returned under warranty four times, Toshiba now tells me that this is normal. Have you any suggestions?

Seems to me that either the batteries you're getting are defective or there must be something draining them. The self-discharge rate of lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries is only about 5 percent per month. That is, in fact, one of the main advantages of Li-ion batteries. By comparison, nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries self-discharge at a rate of about 30 percent per month.

Another advantage of Li-ion batteries is that they don't suffer from the "memory effect." There's no need to fully discharge or fully charge Li-ion batteries to make sure the full capacity of the Compaq Presario M2000 battery is used. If anything, partial discharge is preferred over full discharge with Li-ion batteries.

Bear in mind, however, that Li-ion batteries have limited lifespans, usually between two and three years. Over time, oxidation of the materials inside the Compaq Presario M2200 Battery results in increased resistance and a reduced ability to deliver the charge stored in the battery.

Here are some tips for keeping your Li-ion batteries working at their best:

• Avoid frequent full discharges.

• Batteries with a "fuel gauge" indicator (as many laptops provide) should be calibrated by applying a deliberate full discharge once every 30 charges or so.

• Keep the battery cool. Excessive heat is more likely to shorten Compaq HSTNN-MB09 Battery life than is your charge/discharge pattern.

• For prolonged storage, keep the battery at a 40 percent charge level.

• Remove the battery from a laptop when running on fixed power. (No, I don't bother to do this myself, but not doing so shortens battery life.)

• Don't buy spare Li-ion batteries for later use, since they lose their potential even when unused.

I understand one should never expect much from anything in beta, but I've been using Internet Explorer 7 since beta 1 without problem. That is, until I installed beta 3. After running smoothly for a few days, B3 crashed and would never run after that.

I removed it from my system following Microsoft's instructions, tried downloading B3 again and when the download starts an error message appears that says the download site cannot be found. This happens even though I'm downloading B3 from Microsoft's official site. Any ideas other than waiting for the final version to come out?

The main reason vendors don't make any promises about supporting beta is that they're still making fundamental changes to the code. It's not uncommon for those Compaq Presario V2000 Battery changes to affect how the program works, or doesn't work, with other programs. That's why an earlier beta version of a program might work just fine on your computer and a later version doesn't. Also, the vendor may not have finished some of the support applications, such as removal utilities, that may be needed to clean out problematic drivers or code.

You could try reformatting your Compaq HSTNN-MB10 Battery drive and reinstalling everything, but it's a real pain. That is why vendors warn users about the possible consequences of installing beta code. It may even be that you still have problems with installing the shipping version until you clean out what was left behind by the beta software.

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