Laptop Battery - How to take care?

Hi,

I need to know should I keep my laptop battery plugged in at all times or what?
I use my laptop all day so please advice.

 

I disagree: All the modern notebooks that I have encountered will stop charging the battery once it is is fully charged and, if the computer is left plugged into the mains, won't start recharging until the battery has drained by several per cent. Repeatedly putting the computer through charge discharge cycles will cause more wear than leaving the computer plugged in.

Some computers offer a power management facility which provides a control to limit the maximum charge level below 100%. Use this if you don't need to use the full capacity of the battery when you are working away from the socket because it will further extend the battery's useful life.

John

 

For further evidence that modern notebooks can handle being plugged in all the time, just look at high-end gaming notebooks. Their batteries are not even intended to be used while gaming. They can power the system while you are doing light tasks, like web browsing or watching a movie, but when you are gaming, you are supposed to keep it plugged in the entire time. The battery is simply not designed to provide enough juice to power the entire system when it is being pushed. Even if it does work, it is not good for the life of the battery.

So yeah, modern notebooks are designed to handle being plugged in even when fully charged.

 

Just plug it in and don't worry about it.

Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk

 

1. do not leave it 'unused' for too long.
at least once a month; completely discharge and recharge it.

2. do not let it drain to less than 10% too often, and when you do, try to charge it soon after.

3. if you do not plan on using the battery at all, leave it at 40% , and disconnect it from any power, and every 2~3 months perform a power cycle.

 

^ This.

Technically, there are things you can do to extend the lifespan of a Lithium Ion battery (such as storing it at a certain charge level, at a certain temperature). But it's kind of a pain-in-the-rear to do that, especially for a laptop battery that you're actually "using". Even if you leave your laptop plugged in 100% of the time, it's still a pain to deal with carefully managed charge / discharge whenever you actually DO need to run your laptop off of battery. And over time, your laptop battery will degrade anyway. There just isn't any way around that.

I agree with HTWingNut. Just plug it in and don't worry about it. And then 2 years down the road, just buy a new battery for $60 - $80, and get another 2 years of life out of that new battery.[/QUOTE]

 

Leave it plugged in as much as possible. But don't be afraid to unplug it and use it as a portable device when you need to. Batteries aren't all expensive nowadays and are part of the ordinary "wear items" of a laptop.

Having said that, I have a Latitude D630 that spent nearly 100% of its life (~7 years) plugged in, on its original battery. If I unplug it, its still good for around 3.5 hours of use (originally ~5). So the battery has degraded, but not that significantly over time. My D830's are like on their 4th batteries now, so laptops which are run on-battery will eventually wear those batteries out. Deep discharges are the worst for Li-Ion cells.