Charging Battery

Hi, I've a new ASUS VivoBook S400CA-RH51T-CA, and had to unplug the machine to get to the other room in order to plug a cable from the modem to the laptop - setting it up for the first time.
The Battery was showing full charge but I hadn't had it plugged in for maybe 30 minutes or so.
I noticed afterwards, the instructions say to charge it for 3 hours. My question is, will my unplugging it before the three hour charge actually hurt the Battery? And now that I have it unplugged, should I leave it till it totally goes dead or a "close death experience" and then plug it back in.
Your help will be most appreciated!

 

I would say leave it plugged in and finish the charge and moving it like what you did won't hurt it. And no don't wait til it is almost drained to plug it back. I leave my laptops at home plugged in all the time and so far the battery have been fine.

 

With a new machine I always fully charge the battery with the computer turned off when I remove it from the box. Then I turn it on for the first time and use it on battery until the windows warns me to shutdown. I do not think unplugging will hurt the battery. You should be fine letting it fullly discharge at this point. Then fully charge it and run it on battery until the battery fully discharges; just to verify that you are getting close to advertised battery life.

 

Thanks very much for the replies. Stormjumper, I can't leave it plugged in because I unplugged it last night and thought I might leave it that way till it drained, at least to the point where I got a warning saying the battery was low. This is why I roared onto this forum to get instruction as to what to do. If you were to say "plug it back in" or "leave it till drained" ... I'll take your advice.

Josea - are you suggesting let it drain till I get the warning to plug it back in, or let it drain till the computer shuts itself down. Just so I'm getting it right what you folks are suggesting.

I seriously appreciate your help. Thanks again!!!

 

It has been said but as said no it will not hurt the battery having unplugged prior to the 3 hour magic mark. Should you drain then charge? If the question is about the battery and damage? Then it does not matter, plug in or don't plug in. Josea had a point about charging then running down so that you get some idea of if you get the performance/time you expect. That is also important for calibration. It lets the OS or any 3rd party app gauge it. That will give you a more accurate % and remaining time. It does not have anything to do with battery "health".

Li-Ion and Li-Poly batteries do not suffer from "memory" effect. As such you do not need to do full charge/discharge cycles. You can plug in and unplug when you need. That said I would suggest and have read might not be a bad idea on say a monthly cycle to full charge and full discharge. This will help with the calibration for the OS. The other benefit I have heard about with zero scientific support is....Fully charging generates activity in all cells. Fully discharging fully generates activity in all cells. While I have no real definitive evidence I think this makes a little sense. And not hard to do. If it is bimonthly that would also be fine. Not written in stone.

If you never run down the battery or never fully charge I worry about the components, anode and cathode becoming atrophied so to speak. That is why I suggest and the one month cycle is just convenience.

So with that out of the way. Don't ask how to prolong your batteries life. These batteries have a life cycle. They start to lose the ability to hold a charge starting from the day they are made. Heat is a major factor that accelerates this loss of ability to hold a charge. Batteries that are stored/maintained at a partial charge reduce the speed at which the inevitable loss occurs. The final straw in the "big" 3 is the finite number of charge cycles. Understand I am talking full charge/discharge. So if you do a half charge/discharge only takes 1/2 away, sort of. Batteries used to be maybe 350 to 500 charge cycles. This was an average and dealt with maybe a useful charge. The battery does not have a complete fail. It slowly loses it's ability to hold a charge. I just saw Samsung bragging about 1,000 full cycles so I assume all the numbers have gone up.

So in closing you have two choices as I see it. I am right or you ruined your new notebook. I think you like what I say better.

 

There are generally 3 factors which affect the overall longevity of a Lithium Ion battery. Depth of charge, Storage Charge level and Ambient temperature.
It has already been mentioned earlier that the Battery will retain its overall charged capacity over more cycles if it is only partially discharged. Li Ion hates been fully discharged and recharged as this greatly stresses the cells.

Storage charge is usually implemented by the manufacturer but it is impossible to know if it has. Basically, Li Ion cells will degrade faster if it is stored at a higher charge (because, 100% charged cells have a higher voltage than say an 80% charged cell). As a precaution, keep the battery at 80% if you are not needing the full runtime (and are also obsessed with battery longevity), or at 40% (which is even better) if keeping for long term storage.

Finally, Temperature, higher temperatures = faster degradation. Optimal temperatures is about 25-30 degrees celsius with the battery rapidly degrading above 40 degrees.

For a more in depth article on everything I've mentioned, check out: How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University

 

Doctor... I would set your power plan to shut down ~ 5 % battery life, do not fully drain it while windows is running. Then if you want to drain if fully power back on, enter the BIOS (by pressing F2 ???) and let it sit on BIOS screen till it fully discharges (this is known as calibration)

 

Super explanation(s) guys!!! Thank you ever so much for the in depth information!!!

 

Here another link I found about battery charging and some advice it might be of some knowledge....

Battery Wiki: Laptop Battery Facts and Tips.