Laptop battery longevity tips?

Hi guys,

If there's a better forum for this, please move the post / let me know where to repost it.

I bought a new HP Envy 15 and I want to keep the 6 cell Li-poly battery in the best shape I can. Unfortunately it only goes ~3 hours on a charge with light use, hardly enough to get me through the day. It won't be a desktop replacement by any means and the battery will see quite a bit of use, but for days when I'm forced to sit for 8 hours at a time, I want to know what I should be ideally doing to prolong the life / capacity of the battery.

Should I be leaving it plugged in at 100% as much as needed, or should I be purposely disconnecting the charger every now and then and letting the battery discharge (down to 20-40% or so), then plugging it back in, and rinse / repeat to cycle it? I'd prefer not to have to take the battery out of the thing every time I plan on using it for 3+ hours in one sitting, since it seems like an unnecessary hassle. Should I just pick up a spare battery and disregard the degradation of the original?

Thanks.

 

Lithium polymers are better with charge cycles than regular lithium ions, so I would just go with your last suggestion and not worry about it.

 

Honestly, making a battery last as long as possible is inconsistent with use.


The more you charge it, the faster it degrades, every battery has a finite number of cycles. Most batteries today are technically overcharged. They should technically only be charged 100% just before you need to use it. They prefer to sit at around 50% when stored.

For maximum longevity, charge it to 50% and then store it..
When you intend to use it, charge it, then do not let it drain completely. Say no less than 10%. Once charged to storage capacity, unplug the battery and place in in a cool, dry, dark place. Not on concrete or dirt, these can create a ground and discharge it. Also, don't let it fall below 10% while in storage.


Yep, pain in the neck right?
Your battery should last 3 years under normal use, so long as you don't drain it completely. Lithiums HATE being completely discharged. I have seen them die by just doing this 3 times.

By the end of 3 years, expect it to be pretty tired. By then the aftermarket (Ebay) will come to the rescue with a battery 1/3 the cost of HP and give you about 80% of your battery life and longevity back.

What I am saying is, don't worry about it, it's not worth it.

 

I agree with all except for 3 years. Which is possible but that's pushing it. (And maybe 40% instead of 50% but that again is being picky).

If you want to get more exact, use the 500 cycles mark--which is the average, and you can go from there.

And yes, if it drops below 90% and you recharge it, that counts as a cycle. So it looks like you're going to have to remove it after all, if long life is what you're after.

Incidentally, I'm probably the only one that will suggest this, but I believe you should buy a spare battery when you purchase your notebook. It's cheaper at that time, and will be insurance should one fail.

 

doesn't envy also have 2 batteries which increase battery life? Maybe u should get the extra slab battery...

 

The one thing to remember with batteries, it's not like they will hit 500 and stop.

You may get 400 you may get 800, it's a lot of luck of the draw and a bit how how it's treated. I still recommend treat it how you like and deal with the consequences. The difference between treating it good and not worrying about it are small. The only way to significantly extreme it is being extremely anal about the whole thing and it's just not worth it.

 

batteries are disposable/sacrificial items. They wear out.

 

Exactly what I was trying to say!
Thanks!

 

not just batteries, all things wear out. it's just a matter of how long and how we can make it longer.
That's the point of OP and why he made this thread.

just plug it in all the time for minimal cycle count increment.

 

Try to avoid using your laptop with batteries in while on AC Power. Two my friends laptop's batteries were severely weakened because of that.

 

I had this experience too with my Thinkpad T22.
so I'm using my Dell with battery taken out now.. but OP said he didn't want to.

 

Batteries are a strange thing i run both my laptops on AC almost all of the time and the wear on both are less than 4%. On both laptops almost all of the wear came the first 3-4 months and then stopped. The most surprising is my older HP 6510b which is 2.5 years old and the battery is still good.

EDIT

My DV7 was calibrated a few days ago but i will calibrate my HP 6510b just to make sure the wear is still below 4%.

 

That should really not affect anything on modern laptops because once the battery charges while plugged in, no power is given to it or drawn from it until you pull the plug. Theo OP also said he had lithium polymer batteries, which are less susceptible to wear due to use than the standard lithium ions batteries most laptops have.

 

yeah, they (manufacturers) learn from experience..
we (users) also learn from experience.. and at least that's what do us good

 

Yes, yes. I assumed that was understood; the 500 is an average test figure. In the real world, batteries are subject to too many environmental variables to pin down one specific number of cycles.

 

Not entirely entirely true.
They often leave a small charge going just to keep it topped up, otherwise without a charge they slowly will lose charge.

The problem is that batteries today are basically "supercharged". Instead of charging them to 100%, they are basically shoving between 150% and 200% into them and keeping them charged that much.

Many Sony laptops (Sony makes 90% of laptop batteries) come with "battery care" which limits how much juice you push into the battery. Mine has 50%, 80% and 100%. They warn that if you leave it plugged in most of the time, to set this at 50% or you will slowly eat away your battery. Most laptop makers do not do this.

 

It will read as 100% charged even though it is slowly losing charge. A property inherent in lithium ion batteries is that they cannot be trickle charged, so you clearly grabbed your statement out of thin air. They are not NiCd or NiMH batteries and will die very quickly and possibly get extremely hot and combust if they are overcharged. If I leave my computer plugged in for a couple weeks and then yank the plug, the charge reading from my battery will instantly drop to the true charge.

That battery care thing is correct. For storage that isn't too far from the optimal charge.

And Sony doesn't make 90% of laptop batteries...

 

OP, I don't see how you're expecting to get 8 hours or something close to that if you're only getting 3 hours or so now. Your battery won't magically have more charge and neither can you really do much to reduce the watt draw so drastically under normal uses.

Anyway, what I do with my battery is leave it at exactly 40% charge, and store it in my fridge in a ziploc bag. This prevents moisture and it keeps it cool. My battery still does pretty well after 9 months; under my minimal settings on a Lenovo T500 I think I can still manage 7 hours or so, but yeah I don't really need that many hours nor do I have it off my desk much. I bought this laptop thinking I would need many hours for class. I was very wrong. I hardly use it for notes in class and class doesn't need much more than 1-2 hours. I kind of regret the purchase but it's a fine laptop... just hoped I could have gotten something with a stronger GPU/CPU because I am a gamer.

Off-topic there... Anyway, so I basically store it in my fridge at 40% charge for the most part, only taking it out and charge it full when I'm going back home from the airport or whatever else needs it, like a BIOS update. Honestly, I don't know if it's worth if it you use your battery frequently, but I don't so I'm sticking with it. The downside is having it as a back up power source and the degradation, but worth the time? Maybe not. I've stepped on the power cable a few many times, unplugging and shutting off my laptop abruptly. If I had a battery, I wouldn't have to worry about that or blackouts... so yeah.

 

Sony, until recently held over 70% of the market and that has been falling due to battery problems and competition becoming more competitive.

However most of the major manufacturers are/were using them which means most laptops still have Sony batteries in them considering most laptops on peoples desks are not brand new. Samsung only really made headway after they came out with a new cell and Sonys started exploding.

Acer, Sony, Hp, Lenovo, Apple, Dell, Toshiba, Panasonic (who also makes batteries), Hitachi, and Fujitsu all use Sony batteries, those manufacturers sell the bulk of notebooks made. Some have started looking into Samsung but I'm not sure exactly who.

You are correct about trickle charging, I was not aware of that, it doesn't change the fact that they do lose charge and are appearing to be cramming more power in them than they should (hence my over charging term, it was meant to simplify what was being said).