In general how do you make sure your battery lasts?

In general how do you make sure your battery lasts?

People talk about things like don't keep it close to fully charged

Are there other ways you can decrease the capacity/lifespan of your battery over time?

Are there ways you can make sure the battery lasts longer?

 

The two things I do that help make mine last are:
1) I occasionally discharge it most of the way, maybe once a month especially if I hadn't used it on battery in a while.
2) I don't leave it plugged in and charging 24/7. When I turn the laptop off at night I use a power strip to kill the charger power too. At work I undock the laptop over the weekends.

This has helped me with many laptops/cell phones/game systems over the years. I NEVER have had to buy a battery for any device in the last 10 years, granted I only keep them for 2-3 years in some cases though. They are usually almost as good as new a couple years later. My work laptop, after 3 years I still couldn't notice any degradation in battery run time, I am sure there was some wear, but my point is it still lasted for about 3 hrs just like when it was new.

 

Use this software called Throttlestop. The main purpose of it, as suggested by the title, is to remove throttling problems in mobile CPUs though it can be used for lots of purposes. This is the link to the guide:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/hardware-components-aftermarket-upgrades/531329-throttlestop-guide.html

Repaste your CPU and GPU (if you have a dedicated one) to reduce temps if they're high like high 50s-60s C idle. The fan would spin less and of course draw less power (thought might not be noticeable).

EDIT: the purpose of throttlestop in this scenario is that you can set a frequency at which the CPU will work at example max frequency will be 1.6 GHz and by disabling turbo, it won't fluctuate by clocking up and down.

 

Never use the battery.

 

I don't find this statement true at all. Battery cells deteriorate no matter if they are sitting in the box new or being used. It will deteriorate less when not used, but it still goes down. And the notion that you should unplug your laptop so it doesn't overcharge is bollocks, all modern laptops should stop charging the battery once it hits 100%. And it's also partial luck of the draw, Sanyo and Sony batteries 99.9% of the time die sooner than Panasonic batteries. Unfortunately there is no way to tell what battery you have up front and you can't really order a specific one up front, it's a random lot. As an example, my 2007 Lenovo R61 ThinkPad still has the original 6 cell Panasonic battery, and has 47/56 WHr with 200 charge cycles, still works great.

 

It was a tongue-in-cheek comment -- if you never use you battery, then it effectively lasts forever.

 

Perhaps in the sense that if you never eat a Twinkie, it never goes "bad", and will still be around for years to come. But if you get hungry for a Twinkie in 2 years, that doesn't mean the Twinkie will still be "good", as in edible. The battery may not be known to be bad, but if you try to use it after a decade of sitting there, it's not unlikely that it will last less time or be less reliable than a new one.

Source: I still have a few original Twinikies performing a science experiment of whether Twinkies really do last forever. My conclusion so far is that they do indeed last forever, but not in an edible form. Even in the plastic shrink wrap, they eventually dry out so much that I no longer consider them to be edible.

Also, I bought a cell phone that had been sitting around for 5 years or so and had its original, unused battery. It lasted for close to a year, but the phone then began shutting off spontaneously, which ended up being because the battery was corroding, and no longer delivering a consistent charge.

But on the main topic at hand, I don't really worry about it. The battery exists to be used. And while it would make it last longer to take it out when plugged in, that would also mean that if the power went out or the power cord got disconnected, the laptop would shut down instantly. To me, having the battery last a bit longer isn't worth that trade-off.

So far, my results are that my initial laptop battery lasted about 3.5 years (until it was under an hour of life with conservation efforts), and the replacement is now about 3.25 years old, and lasts about an hour and a half with WiFi and decent screen brightness. When new, they lasted about 3 hours at regular bright WiFi use, and 5 hours when conserving. I consider that adequate lifespan. For phones, other than the corroded battery that had been sitting for years unused, I've never had to replace one, with phones that lasted 4 years and 3.5 years and counting. In both cases, the phones were/will be retired due to other issues first.

On the other hand, I did have a camera that I lost for about 2.5 years, and its battery is also corroding and needs to be replaced. So I guess my conclusion is... don't worry about it, as long as you are actually using the device occasionally!

 

I don't worry about it whatsoever, and if the battery needs replacing, I replace it.