Questions about battery usage.

Hello everyone,

I just bought a 1505 notebook and had since it is my first notebook I wanted to ask the experts about battery usage. When you all are sitting at home or near an electrical outlet do you plug in regardless if your battery is fully charged or not? It is better to use the outlet over the battery? I have been using the battery unless I am burning DVDs or downloading because I am worried it will power off in the middle of a burn or download unless I move the mouse around to keep the session active. I also let the red battery light flash before plugging into the outlet and then recharge to 100% before starting over. My intentions are to extend the life of the battery. Is fully draining the battery and fully recharging the best way to extend the life?

 

Most batteries are good for a few hundred charge cycles, so the quicker you reach that level, the sooner you'll need a new battery. Batteries do wear out over time, so going on and off battery throughout the day, you will notice the charge getting shorter and shorter as the months pass.

Mfg's also reccomend you charge at around ~20% as well. Draining it all the way down and then charging it all the way back up somehow affects the battery more according to some things i've read.

 

you have a limited # of cycles (about 500) so if you continually discharge/recharge, you are wasting those cycles unecessarily.

just keep your notebook running cool/within normal operating temps and don't keep discharging/recharging for no reason. that's it. easy.

 

You can simply keep your notebook plugged in all the time to preserve the battery. Laptops use lithium (Li-on) batteries. This means that there is no memory effect (you can charge the battery at any time w/o losing unused capacity), but that also means that the battery performance will degrade with time and as the number times you recharge it increases. You have more partial recharge cycles than full recharge cycles (full is what you're doing).

Also note that if you game or stress your video card, your laptop may not perform as well on the battery as when it's connected to the outlet.

 

yes 20% to start charging is good

in addition, since litium ion batterys don't have charge memory, there's no disadvantage to start charging at 20-40%

best not to let it dip lower then 10%


also, if you can use AC adapter to power your laptop, use it as using the battery will shorten it's life

 

Thanks for the replies. I am glad I asked since it sounds like I was shortening the life of the battery. I’ll keep her plugged in for now on when there is an outlet nearby and recharge at < 20%.