Battery, Power Brick and Power Management Best Practices ??

OKay - first off - please excuse the simplicity of this question. I am in need of proper power management etiquette. I use my Sager 5793 as a desktop replacement. The only mobility I need is to go from room to room within the house. But the majority of the time it stays in one room, on one desk. My question is what is proper ettiquette when it comes to power?

1. Should I completely shut down my notebook every night or just "sleep it"? Should I set it so both the display AND Hard Drive go off after a certain amount of time...or just the display?

2. Should I always leave the AC Adapter (Power Brick) plugged in to the surge protector or should I unplug it every night? I rarely work on battery power...should I even keep the battery in? Will keeping it plugged in all the time, even when the computer is off shorten the length of the battery?

Again, excuse the "Noobiness" of these questions....any advice is much appreciated....

 

You are safe using standby rather than shut down. After a few sleeps, your system may run a bit slow, so just restart it every once and a while.
It is always a good idea to shut it off when you are not using it. You do not want to leave the system on all of the time because the harddrives usually do not last very long, and you dont want your system conyinually running for heat issues.
I highly recommend always using a surge protector. Get one which has a switch on it, so that you can simply push a switch to cut the ac power rather than unplugging it every night.
Keeping the battery in your laptop all of the time does not hurt the battery. Many will say that it will cut battery life but they are wrong.
Kets go back to basic chemistry and physics here. A battery will only charge when their is a potential voltage gradient between the battery and the power output of the ac adaptor. This is why a battery's voltage is never higher than the voltage output of the ac adaptor. Lets say the battery is 14.4Volts. The battery will charge until the battery reaches 14.399999 volts. When 14.4 volts is reached their is no potential voltage gradient, so the battery stops charging.

One other thing to note, when you wrap up the power cables, do not wrap them tightly around the power brick. Continual wrapping of the wire causes the wire to stretch and kink causing the ac adaptor to fail. Just keep the wires a little loose and the ac adaptor will last for a long time.

Also keep the fan vents unblocked, and buy some laptop feet to prop up the back of your laptop, this will help increase airflow circulation and prolong the life of your laptop.
When gaming, press Fn+F2 to force the fans to full speed, this will help keep your laptop from overheating.

I hope this helps

K-TRON

 

^^ I agree with all said common sense wise and as a matter of practical strategy. I must however disagree on the assertion that leaving batt in has no effect on batt life. To use an expression already brought to the table. "Basic chemistry" heat accelerates chemical reactions, therefor heat increases the natural breakdown of the batt. To maximize batt life store with a 40% to 50% charge in a cool place. I in no way believe "overcharging" is the issue as explained above. The Battery Guide has more info on this. I for one take no efforts to extend the life of my battery as for my uses not worth the effort, but for some it might be.

 

Excellent information! Very interesting and helpful....thank you...

 

I have an HP Pavilion 2000 and I ordered a new adapter as my last one shorted out. However they sent me the wrong one and it has have a volt greater output and one ampere greater output. Could anyone tell me if I can still use that or will it burn my laptop? Any advice is much appreciated.

 

Notebook manufacturer is the place to go for that info. Can you get adapter #'s from websites? I would suspect it will work fine but encourage you to confirm.