battery usage?

I'm in the market for a new laptop (posted help/advice request in another category!). However, in the past, I've had bad luck with notebook batteries, and I feel that I may somehow be using them incorrectly or inefficiently.

How do you keep a notebook battery from losing its ability to hold a charge? Should I be running the battery completely out before recharging? Or should I recharge every night, regardless of the battery's status? If I use the laptop at home, plugged in, should I leave the battery in the computer (charging, by default)? Or should I remove the battery when I know I'm going to be plugged in?

Any help/advice on this topic would be GREATLY appreciated! I don't know what I've been doing wrong...

Thanks!!

 

You can't, a battery with gradually lose the amount of charge it can hold over time.

 

usapatriot,

Thank you for your reply. I guess I should have mentioned that I DO expect SOME reduced battery life over time. But the last battery I had became completely useless (wouldn't hold ANY charge) in 13 months...just long enough for the warranty to run out.

Is that the average life of one of these batteries? Or are there things I can do to keep this from happening quite so fast?

Thanks again for your reply!

 

What is you usage pattern. If you are on the go a lot and have to fully discharge and charge a battery daily. I would not be surprise that you have worn it out as Li-Ion is only good for about 500 full charge discharge cycles.

 

Well, typically what I did was this:

Wake up in the morning, unplug my laptop (but leave it turned on, sleeping) and bring it to school with me. I would use it mainly in the library, after my classes were over, but sometimes I would pull it out during a class to take notes. Any time that I was using it, I would plug it in to the nearest outlet. After class/library time/etc I would put the computer back to sleep, unplug it, and take it home. Then at home, I'd plug it back in again, and use it if I needed to do work. If I didn't need to do work, then I'd just leave it plugged in until morning, sleeping. The only times I really used the battery at all were if I knew I was only going to be using the computer for 15-30 minutes (checking email, etc).