How do you guys maintain the battery life?

I have the UX32A, gives me around ~5 hrs of battery life typically.

My procedure is: Charge until 95-100% full, then run on battery until it gets to around 10-15%. Then I charge again until full, and repeat.
So I constantly charge it and run on battery in a given day.

What do you guys do? What is the best procedure?

 

THAT IS THE WORST, MOST HORRIBLE THING TO DO!

Batteries have a finite number of charge/recharge cycles (about 500 for Li-Po). Don't waste them needlessly. Batteries also decay on their own, and are best stored at 40-60% charge (especially in the fridge). But otherwise, stored at 100% is MUCH BETTER than constantly discharging/charging it. Also, never store them discharged (like leaving an old gadget in the drawer for months or years).

 

So you're telling me to leave it plugged in all the time when I'm home? Isn't keeping it plugged in even at 100% also just as bad?

I'd like to hear what other members do as well.

 

yeah.. what we do? do we charge it max then use it, or keep it always charged? thx!

 

All Asus notebooks i've seen will not charge the battery until it goes down to 95% and it takes quite a while for it to loose 5% charge when it's constantly plugged in. My best advice would be use it normally, kee it plugged in when it's on the desk and use it on battery when you need to.

 

I know for a fact that my work laptop hp 8440p battery's doesnt hold a charge after mostly being on the dock for over a year.

It has always been fully charged, and not it hold maybe 30 minutes on battery when I needed it undock.

I think the key is to use it on battery every once in a while, like normal. Not necessarily draining it down to zero and fully charging it again.

 

Take a look at the graphs here: How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University

Some facts:

• Discharging completely will knock 30% of your capacity in 300-500 cycles
• Discharging half-way will give you almost four times as many cycles (ie, a net benefit). But doing very many small discharges gets you nowhere (10% discharge gives 4k cycles, which, when multiplied, is the same as 100% discharges).
• Charging to less than 100% greatly increases the number of full discharge cycles the battery can do. Even charging to just 90% will DOUBLE its cycles.
• Storing at 100% at room temperature will knock 20% of your capacity over a year, while storing at 40% will knock only 4% over than same year. Although not stated, storing at 80-90% will reduce capacity by only 10% yearly.
• Exposing a charged battery to very warm temperature (like getting baked in direct sunlight in a car), will kill it quite quickly (60% gone in 3 months). Even the heat of a hot notebook is bad, so consider getting a cooling stand. (Although I don't think Zenbooks are the kinds of laptops that get hot, especially near the battery.)

Now for some conclusions. If you do two full charge/discharge cycles a day, you will have killed at least 40-60% of your battery within a year, plus whatever it will lose from storage itself. If you do four half charge/dischage cycles, you are better off throwing maybe 25% out the window, as long as you don't charge it before going to sleep. Had you simply kept it fully charged, you'd have only lost 20% and saved yourself the embarassement of appearing to possess a psychiatric illiness.

The absolute best thing is to keep it charged at 40%. But even charging to a more practical 80-90% will double your battery's life. It might also be helpful that the computer should not begin topping off the battery until charge falls 10% or more below target, instead of the usual 5%, although this is nitpicking since those 5% should take a long time (days, if not weeks) to lose if the laptop gets all its power from the outlet.

Some manufacturers (Samsung and Lenovo source: Maximizing the lifespan of a laptop battery | Computerworld Blogs) provide utilities that can enable such a mode! I don't know about ASUS or about third-party utilities. I'll leave this part to other posters to comment. Do note that a purely Windows-based utility won't help you when the computer is off, so something firmware-based is needed.

Lastly, an astute and cynical reader will also note how much leeway a company like Apple (who not only secures its batteries inside its devices, but has started to out-and-out glue them into place) has in controlling its products' battery-induced planned obsolescence.

Your battery is defective, or you did something bad to it (let it discharge below 0%, let it overheat, etc).

Nothing I've ever read said that a Li-Ion battery needs "excercise" (except to recalibrate the battery meter).

 

that hp 8440p is a 2+ year old model, with first gen intel core cpu.

that battery must be old, and old ones don't hold a charge very well.

 

@link & alex, I know it's pretty old but like it said from my experience with just that laptop.

From how I used it (docked most of the time) I could tell that the battery doesn't hold it's charge very well.

It could be that it's near heat, the dock doesnt allow much air flow and the 8440p doesnt have great cooling anyway.

 

Okay, I don't understand you on some points. What do you mean keep it charged at 40%? I know that is the best percentage to STORE a battery at (ie a removable battery being stored away) but I have the Zenbook with the build in battery. What I was looking for is the best method for my use, which I didn't quite understand.

Right now I charge to ~95% and run on battery until ~15% then repeat. This way, I don't overcharge my laptop nor deeply discharge it, but keep wearing it at its normal middle range. What I want is the maximum battery life and make it last long (in terms of years)

 

Some notebooks' firmware allows setting the maximum charge to something lower than 100%, which is the same as storing it at that charge (unlike what you are doing, which is wearing it out faster than storing it at 100%). Read the rest of my post, read the link, think about it for yourself.

The best method is to leave it alone. Even if some discharge/charge protocol were slightly better under some circumstances, stressing over it for 3 years is not worth the $100. I hope you realize that.

 

It's actually not stressing me, I enjoy having the LED indicator tell me when its green, and i just unplug it quickly, and I can take the laptop on my bed or something. When i need power, i plug it back in. I generally don't keep my laptop stationary (I take it to school everyday). So it honestly hasn't bothered me to keep plugging in/out..But if I am correct you are saying to keep it plugged in.. I guess I will do that.

 

Only if you want to keep the battery working well for longer. Other than that you can enjoy your laptop any way you want, but after one year you might need a new battery. Remeber that every battery has a limited charging cycles.

I do like this for some time and it works:

- if I have more than one batteries, I store the ones I don't use at 50% charge, in a cool and dry place. I've lost nothing from battery power so far, even after 4 years - that every battery will lose 10% per year is not very accurate;
- I never use the battery unless I have to, but I don't take it out either, I just keep it plugged - most modern laptops have a smart charger;
- I try to keep the laptop on a flat solid surface for proper air flow - batteries are damaged by heat;
- I never use the battery until the laptop will shut down and I never let it for long periods of time if completly discharged - deep discharge will damage the battery.

 

I prefer letting it charge 100% and then keeping it on battery power until I see a warning for low battery :thumbsup:

 

Just some notes and links:
From Wired

Cadex Electronics CEO Isidor Buchmann told WIRED that ideally everyone would charge their batteries to 80 percent then let them drain to about 40 percent. This will prolong the life of your battery — in some cases by as much as four times. The reason is that each cell in a lithium-polymer battery is charged to a voltage level. The higher the charge percentage, the higher the voltage level. The more voltage a cell has to store, the more stress it’s put under. That stress leads to fewer discharge cycles. For example, Battery University states that a battery charged to 100 percent will have only 300-500 discharge cycles, while a battery charged to 70 percent will get 1,200-2,000 discharge cycles.


An app for Mac called FruitJuice which aims to maximise battery life. I've never tested it.

And this solution with a Belkin Weko.

 

My UX32A is 18 months old. I run it on battery in the morning, charge it up lunchtime and run it on battery in the evening, then charge it up over night. Battery wear is 8.5%. So I have given it around 1000 full charge discharge cycles and still get around 3 hours out of a charge. It was only 3 hours and 40 minutes when it was brand new. Never saw anything over 4 hours ever.
I previously had a Samsung NC10 netbook which ran for 4 hours when new and gave 3.5 hours on battery after 3.5 years of daily use.
I have a DELL Inspiron 1300 which still works (Celeron and XP) and gives 1 hour and 40 minutes on its original NiMh battery.

I look after my batteries yet the Ultrabook 'promise' of 7 hours battery life is impossible.