Is my laptop battery dying too fast?

I just bought my laptop (Acer Aspire 3680) back in March. When I first got it I didn't use it all that much. But after I got the Sims 2 I constantly played it on the laptop with the battery plugged in. I would even keep the cord in after it was fully charged. I would have no idea when the critical levels would come b/c when you are playing a game you can't see or hear the warnings. So in that case it would get discharged pretty fast, have to recover the info, then recharge it back to 100% and keep it in. That was fine and dandy a few weeks ago but now when I unplug it I hangs around 100-99% for a while and immediately drops to 94%. And this is within a few seconds to a couple of minutes. Have I messed up my battery with all that nonsense? Now it seems as if I can't get a full charge anymore. This may sound silly but is there a way to recover that lost 6% or is it gone for good? I just learned that I could have ran it off the power w/o the battery plugged in.

Answers:
No worries about that 6%. What's important is how long the battery will last before the computer shuts off. Laptop batteries don't have a memory like the old NiCads used to. So cycling them won't really do much good. And how long a battery lasts is dependent on how much power you are using. CPU speed/Disk usage/Brightness level of your display all effect battery life. Don't listen to the manfacturer, they will always tell you a number that isn't realistic. Let's just say you are watching a movie off the hard drive (No DVD) it's should last around an hour to an hour and a half depending how big your battery is.
Your battery is fine. Your laptop just needs a new user.
be carefull of your battery, especially when your charging it... do not over charge it... here are some tips to make ur battery life longer...
u can upgrade ur hard disk drive capacity, or if you dont have enough budget, u can just defragment your drive occassionaly so that when your laptop read files from your drives, it wont take a long time. because reading files from time to time really consumes ur battery life.

remove devices from ur usb when u are not using them, because this removable devices also consumes ur battery charge.

adjust ur backlight, reduce it to not so bright and not so dark... because back lights also consumes alot...
those are just some of my tips..
Mine does the same thing. Now I just keep it in all the time. If I have it off for more than 5 min. it turns off. I need to buy a new plug and batteries, but I've had my laptop for a couple of years already. I don't see how a laptop that you bought in march will be doing this.

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