Ok to repeatedly plug laptop in before battery is low?

Just got my first laptop, and my wife likes using it on battery in her favorite chair whereas I prefer to sit it on the coffee table plugged into the outlet. So we end up charging it up when I use it, and only draining it to between 90 and 50% or so when she uses it. Is this okay to do, should I fully drain it once a month or so, am I being too paranoid about taking care of it?

 

Lithion Ion batteries are designed to be always plugged in and cahrged, meaning thats how they are designed to fail as fast as possible so you can buy a new one.

Google search how many people who use their laptop plugged in but left the battery in After 1 year the battery was useless.

Its a defect designed into them so you have to buy more.

I have seen this happen with countless friends.

Simply put if you are plugged in take battery out.

If you run on battery never let it drain to zero automatic shutoff. And never let it fill to 100% capacity.

that uses up your limited life span of 300 charge cycles.

even with perfect use lithiums degrade and in a few years what use to be max 100% will only be max 80%.

and if you are gonna store or take out the battery for a while, Take it out at 50% charge or 40% charge not 100%. This helps keep it the best condition possible.

Maybe an electrical engineer can tell you why Lithium-ion cells "like" to be stored with a 50% charge.

 

Wow, great reply. Thanks!

 

yeah I'm very paranoid about battery care.

 

My father have HP nx9420 8 cells and He always use it on power supply (battery in) - now the battery is total crap!
I had friend of mine - He treated/used the same nx9420 - exactly the same way - power supply + battery non-stop - now He still has 3+ hours on battery!

My brother has the same notebook/laptop too - He rarely use it on battery and He has 3+ hours on battery!

So It is just luck!
I believe only in - the heat really can damage/harm your battery!

I can give you tons of different cases - It is totally impossible to prognosis "What will happen with your "new" battery"!Really!

Sorry my bad English!

 

It isn't luck and there is a lot of truth to what IceCold said, although some parts were close, but not exact. The proper point is coveyed all the same.

In general, Li-Ion batteries lifespans are determined not by how much of their capacity is used on a regular basis, or at all. It is determined by charge and discharge cycles. What that means, as IceCold explained to some degree as well, if you leave the battery plugged in all the time you'll kill it faster.

The reason is very simple. Every battery, no matter the technology, has a natural discharge rate. That is the rate at which the battery charge drains naturally without any actual use. It is usually really small, like 1% a month or something, but that doesn't matter. If you are plugged into an outlet once your battery drops below the threshold set by the OEM for a charge to kick in the AC line will top the battery off to 100%. Using up 1 charge/discharge cycle. Thus killing, or at least weaking, your battery fast with no real use.

That's probably the reason Dell included a button to turn off the laptop's charger board when you want to while on AC line. As if you use a good portion of the battery about once a month or so you'll keep the natural discharge rate under control.

In general Li-Ion batteries don't like to be taken below 20% capacity. It wears them a lot faster. So it is generally understood that you should charge it as close to 20% as possible, although that isn't always feasible.

I am at NY Penn Station awaiting a bus so I'm not as free on time as usual nor on my fast internet connection, but if I rem. and I get time I will respond again with sources for the information I posted so you don't have to just take what I say at face value, but in the meantime I recommend you pull up information on the batteries so you can figure it out as well.

 

I don't know but from my experience
I had ASUS EEE 4G - 1 years usage - non stop full discharging - after 1 year - 0 % wear level
I had HP Compaq 6730s - the same usage (8 cells battery) - 0 % wear level
I have Dell Studio 1535 after 1-2 months usage - 12 % wear level (I guess it is BIOS detection issue/defect, because It increase wear level only after BIOS update/BIOS full re-reload/re-detect all components)
Friend of mine has ASUS something...laptop.... - after 3-4 months - 3 % wear level

And again I have friend on mine and He non-stop uses his notebook (with battery plugged in) with power supply!
Now after 3 or 4 years - he still gets 3 hours up time on battery!

If Ice Cold and your statements are true - his battery must be total crap!

+
HP for example, strongly suggest his clients to discharge 3-4 times fully their batteries for calibration reason!
Or to be exact to fully discharge and charge their batteries...
If fully discharge is dangerous...Why HP technicians......Little non-sense....

I know many different theories but the real proof still missing...

Oh and this is notebook!IT IS NOT NORMAL DESKTOP PC...
So its primary target is to give us mobility...I guess everyone here will need maximum time on battery....

 

Do all Dell laptops have this feature? Where is the button located on the Studio 15 to turn off the charging while on AC power?

Thanks

 

Hit Fn+F3 then Battery Life tab and it will have an option to disable charging.

I'll get your sources when I'm on my bus. Right now I'm closing the laptop as I'm on 12% power

 

I don't have that option, it just says Battery Status: Idle

 

Lithium Ion batteries have no trouble being used like this. You don't need to fully drain them because there is not a memory effect with them like other technologies. If you want to store your battery for an extended period of time discharge to about 40% and store in a cool place. Don't listen to Ice Cold, he has no idea what he is talking about with regards to the designed to fail and other paranoid BS.

 

A valid source was requested...

http://batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm

This information if from Cadex Electronics a producer of Lithium Ion Batteries

http://www.cadex.com/battery_info/

 

That doesn't seem to work on my 1520, either. The F3 key does have a battery symbol on it, but Fn+F3 doesn't do anything (least not on the screen). Does it require some Dell utility that ships with the laptop? That could be the problem since I never reinstalled any of those since I first re-installed the OS in Sept 07.

But I do recall seeing an option to not charge while on AC power in the BIOS. Not quite as convenient, but it would work.

I'm of the opinion you don't need to be nearly as careful with batteries. I've used mine however I feel like for 17 months now and it still has 82% of its designed capacity according to RightMark CPU Clock Utility. Feels like it gets that much battery life relative to what it used to, too. I'm not sure what % it gave when I first got it - it has been slowly decreasing, but nothing drastic. I use the battery at least once a week (just how it works - not a policy I stick to), and fairly often every day, and never let it discharge all the way (why lose work?), but have it hibernate at the minimum it'll allow of 3%.

A battery eventually will wear out, but what's the point of having a battery if you don't use it or are paranoid about using it? The real point of having a battery on a laptop is the convenience. Sure it also saves you if the power goes out, but most people who have a laptop battery don't also have a UPS on their desktop. I figure if it lasts 3 years and still gets a decent charge, which it's on track to do with no special care, that's a pretty good deal with today's batteries.

 

You need to have installed Dell QuickSet
http://support.dell.com/support/dow...1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=25&fileid=250579
For Fn+F3 - without QuickSet IT JUST NOT WORK!

 

Software utilities aren't very good for measuring batteries. The best way to do it would have to be stil the old fashioned way. You'd have to get out a clock and record how long the battery actually lasts. Software utilities rely on what the battery sensors say, but those are very imprecise.

I was never telling anyone to be paranoid about using their battery, but I do think it is important to know how you should use it. After all, a laptop battery is around $200 which is a good chunk of the notebook value. It only makes sense to know how you can make it last as long as possible, either in run time or life span.

 

Lithium Ion may have memory issues or it could be quick wear and tear on the battery.

i still have my old acer 1557-GLS and i have 3 batteries for it. the first one only lasts about 15 minutes even after being fully charged upon unplugging it. used it for a year, 4x's a week to the point where the battery has only 10% left; my evening classes are 2.5 hours long. one battery use to last a whole class. i would start my class with a full battery and by the end of class, i would have about 5% to 10% left. do this for 2 semester (spring and summer) and the battery started to no last more then 2 hours. i picked up another battery... again, after almost a year it started to die early. soon, i had to carry both batteries with me to last the whole class and even then, i'm stretching it. i had to lower the brightness and turn the display off at every chance i get.

the first battery lasted about 2 years but it wasn't used as hard but still.. lasted 2 year and still had memory issues unless it was just crappy battery and only lasts 2 years. find that hard to believe but i guess it could happen.

this is an ongoing debate and what is the answer in the end? should the battery be charged at all times when possible or should it be charged to 100% and left uncharged until next boot-up of some sort?

 

The main enemies of li-ion are heat, charge cycles and time. It's still a developing technology and new formulas are continually being developed so it will only get better. It doesn't have the memory issues but rather it oxidizes and builds up a resistance that prevents it from powering devices. The battery could be completely charged, but not able to transmit the power to the device. I think in your case the accumulation of charge cycles eventually lead to its demise.

 

since I disabled Vista's Superfetch I got rid of my hdd thrashing for 10 minutes. My battery life has improved now.

Now to get a decent solid state hard drive and really save some battery power.


But anyways most of us use our cellphones daily and recharge as needed I think just treat it like a cellphone and it will last a long time. Meaning don't use it with the battery in and on power adapter.

 

Informative read right here on notebookreview:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=91846

 

So if you were to use your laptop like I did in the past for several hours at a time plugged into A.C. power are you saying I should have taken the battery out while using the computer on A.C. power for extended amounts of time? I had an Inspiron 1300 which I used all the time that way wirelessly because on battery power alone I managed about 2 hours of use and my battery was only a 4 cell one which could have been the reason for the short battery life.

 

Very good reading guys, I hadn't checked this thread in a few days (seems I only get notified of replies once in a while, regardless of whether I check back here as soon as I get the notification..), and it's really good reading. I didn't know it'd generate so much info, I was kind of expecting a 'use the search feature' or something along those lines. Much appreciated!

Thanks for the formatting tips too, this thing is FAST now. Every laptop I've ever used was owned by a friend who didn't notice/care about getting what you pay for regarding performance. So they had 15 icons by the clock, weren't able to use the thing for a minute after you boot to the desktop cause stuff's still loading, and all the other BS 'normal' people like us wanna avoid.

 

I have had my Inspiron 1501 for exactly a year. I use it everyday. I sometimes use it on a table in which the Battery is charged 100% and still in the laptop and it is also plugged in. I also sometimes sit on the coach and put it on my lap, usually allowing the battery to get down to about 5% left.

I have done this almost everyday alternating between letting it charge down to 5% or using it plugged in and ive only noticed a SLIGHT difference in the battery length...