Which program to use to disable battery charging?

My old dell studio 15 used a dell provided program called "quickset" or something of that nature which allowed me to disable battery charging. My old m11xr2 before i got it replaced with the current one had a program that i found on these boards that was activated with fn+f2. i cant seem to recall the name of the program.

i've had good luck with the quickset program, but i want to know if it'd be compatible with the m11x. i dont want to create compatibility issues or break something or i would have tried it out myself. if it would, i guess i could reuse that program i had before but i did run into issues where it wouldnt work and i would need to restart the computer for fn+f2 to work again to disable battery charing.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/518585-fn-f2-dsable-battery-charging-works.html

It has always worked fine for me, never had to restart to make it work.

 

It can also be toggled in the bios.

 

what are the obvious benefits in disabling the battery charging? i cant think of any!

 

You preserve the life of the battery. The battery is rated for 300 charge cycles, so if you predominantly use it plugged into a power source, disabling charging preserves the battery as a result. When you plan on going powerless, switch on charging.

 

I should also point out that I've personally never given a crap, and have noticed no ill effects so far.

 

I still dont understand, does pressing FN + F2 save you from physically unplugging the power lead? lol i always prefer to d/c the power lead as, the blue light at the tip of the cable tends to light up my room...

 

lol i dont give a crap too, i must say i rarely let my battery meter fall below say 50%, as soon as its half empty, stick on charge straight away!

 

i think disabling the battery charging has to have some impact. my old dell studio was capable of giving me about 4-5 hours on a charge, but now i'm lucky to get about 2 hours. i'd gotten lazy about disabling the charging (software) or physically removing battery over the past year or so (i had it for about 2 years) and i noticed a drastic decrease in battery life.

 

Disabling battery charging via BIOS hasn't worked for me personally, the battery still charges, just very slowly!

 

I believe the BIOS option only works on the R2 for some reason. I have both an R1 and R2 and its only functioning on the R2.

edit: which is fine by me because I've had it for 3months now and Im still 0% worn. My R1 however is at 7% after less than 1 year.

 

I had an R1 that was 0% worn after about a year, I just sold it.

It still was rated @ 65kwh (64 is factory specs)

I left it plugged in frequently, and used it as a standard laptop discharging frequently.

I see no reason to use this function after my personal experience.

 

im confused. Fn + F2 only works if you have that battery program??? I dont have it, but when I click it this thing pops up (similar to the brightness dimmer window) and says battery enabled. no matter how many times i click it, it never says disabled or the battery stops charging..

thanks!

 

A prolonged battery life.

 

i wonder if dell quickset could work on the m11x?

 

You need to have the program on your computer and open to be able to enable/disable charging with FN + F2.