Best way to preserve your battery

Hello everyone,
i^ve read a lot about it but always with different opinions.
Should i use my laptop without the cable and connect it just when my battery is low?
Or should i use it connected and use my battery just when i needed it to be unplug?
Any tips or advice?
Thanks

 

Heat is the common factor that damages batteries. Honestly keeping it unplugged or plugged in when using it in general or asleep won't make that much difference, especially seen as all laptops now stop the battery from charging after 100%. Best thing to do however if your playing a game is leave it plugged in but take out the battery, so it's not close to very warm components. That should help prolong your battery!

 

Thanks for the answer, however alienware 14 doesn^t have a removable battery ( unless you don't want to remove screws all the time )

 

my new alienware 14 has this feature called "desktop mode battery charge." I am not sure how/if it actually works, but supposedly it only charges the battery to about 50 percent. (50 percent is proven to be the best percent to store Li-ion batteries to preserve their life.) I have it activated, but it still charges my battery to 100%. Not sure whats the deal, but I wish they would just give the option in bios like the m14xr1 did to turn off battery charging.

 

I've never taken the battery of my r3 unless I was performing maintenance or upgrades and it still holds a decent charge for being 2.5 years old now. As long as you aren't constantly going from 100%-0% daily I wouldn't really worry about it.

 

Thanks for the answer, would you suggest to use the pc with the cable plugged or unplugged? I think that's the main question.
If you should use your laptop and then plug it when it's low on battery and unplugged it again when it's fully charged or just keep it plugged and unplugged just when you need it;s portability?

 

My battery still gets my over 6 hours with an SSD under normal use. I plug it in as I need it and the charge fluctuates from 20% to 100% weekly. No signs of it letting go soon. You can always disable battery charging in the BIOS once you're at about 50% if you leave it plugged in most of the time.

 

well if you have access to a power socket I'd always advise being plugged in so your machine has the ability to run at full throttle.

 

Honestly i thought that keeping the laptop plugged would ruin the battery more.But maybe it's just me being paranoic.
Actually i use the laptop unplugged and i tend to use it as much as i can unplugged and i plugged the battery just when the pc is off (unless i HAVE to use it with the cable)..

 

cant turn off charging anymore on the newer alienware's...GREAT feature they removed it for some reason...

 

nah, the more you use it on battery, the more wear you will put on the battery and shorter it will last over time. I'd just chill and leave it plugged in while you game and such when you have access to the powersocket, but if you wanna check out the web on the couch every night or watch a movie on battery thats cool too.

Newer machines already disable charging once the battery hits 100% I believe, so its not a huge deal.

 

Does it mean that once the battery is full charged power goes directly to the laptop or you use the battery and it charges it up everytime battery goes to 99%?

 

I believe that it the power goes directly to the laptop as there is no way my battery would still be working if it didn't.

 

It turns off the battery and starts supplying straight from the PSU once it's fully charged.

 

Oh great, so this is it, i can use the laptop with the ac cable plugged without ruin the battery for costant charge/discharge. Great, thanks!

 

old machines did that too.....clearly you dont get why people miss the feature.

li-ion batts are preserved best at 50% charge....so it was better to charge to 50% and then disable charging. now that it charges to 100%, your battery is slowly degrading just by sitting there fully charged....

 

I'm at 22.1 percent wear after 2.5 years so I don't think it matters to much really. Not bad considering I've just left it fully charged when I'm not using the machine on battery.

 

Constantly cycling between full charging then full discharging is the fastest way to ruin your battery, because of the chemical reactions involved. Just keep it constantly plugged in, battery will stop overcharging once it reaches 100%.

Sent from my LT30p using Tapatalk 4 Beta

 

interesting because my M14xr1 is at 4% wear after 3 years using the 50% charge method.... my m14x r1 STILL gets longer battery life then my brand new alienware 14 which is brand new. which do you prefer now?

lol

 

So What should we do guys? In the new Alienware 14, there is no feature in BIOS to disable charging the battery

 

Just let the laptop do its thing and no discharge the battery 100% percent of the way if at all possible.