Power Manager Settings

I am wondering what everyone sets their battery charge thresholds to?

There are three options for me, which one do you guys use?

1. Always fully charge
2. Optimize for batter lifespan
3. Custom

The reason I ask is that my old laptop (also a TP) and a MPB are both having battery problems, I do use my laptop taking it with me an using it as needed, so I am wondering what people would recommend and what they are doing.

I have a Bay Battery (and I know that will be the first to go)

 

i set mine start charging at 20% and stopped at 95%, i think i saw this setting somewhere in this forum.. am also wondering if my setting is the ideal threashold setting or does anyone has a better setting option?

 

I use custom settings on mine with 35%-95% charging thresholds.

 

I've set mine to 40% 90%.

Batteries are best stored at 40% charge so if you run on AC for any length of time you want to make sure you don't go much below this by setting too low a threshold. In general if I know I'll be on AC for a few days or more I will run down the battery to about 45% and then just plug it in.

Also batteries last longer, and you get more overall power from them during their lifetime, when you do partial charges. 50% partial charge seems a near optimum value but slightly less or more is also OK.

Also batteries don't do too well always being charged to and kept at 100%. The battery life decreases overall when compared to batteries that are charged to slightly less than full capacity.

 

That is what I have heard to, but with the bay battery, the laptop will ALWAYS fully drain that before it will allow it to recharge... I also need to be able to grab my laptop and use it, so if the batteries are both sitting in the 40% charge rate ...

I think I might take the Bay battery out when it hits 40% and let it sit (since it is hot swappable)

 

I used to keep my battery charge levels at 40% to 90%. One day there was a power cut in my area. I worked the battery down from 90% to 60% and then I had a call to go out and had to take my laptop (this is the X201 with the 6-cell) with me and the place where I was going would have no reliable power source and I would be using the laptop.

Ever since then, I keep the max charge level to 95% and the min charge level to 75% - this way, I at least have 75% of the battery charged if I need to leave in a hurry. Yes, I know I should either buy a 9-cell or a second battery, but you know how things are...!!!!

 

I keep my bay battery out except when I expect to use it. However, I will keep it at or near fully charged so that, when it its needed, I know that it is not half empty. If you are regularly needing to run your notebook on battery then you may also want to set the charging thesholds quite high such as 80 and 95%. That way you know that you'll always have at least an 80% full battery.

John

 

I just got home from a short day of work, and my combined battery life is 56% (basically used my bay battery and it just started using my regular battery) ... I am thinking I will just buy another Bay battery when CDW has it on sale (I got mine for about 76 dollars) and this way when this bay battery goes bad I wont feel too bad...

 

I also have 95-75% custom level for the same reason you described. I want my laptop always to have enough juice for several hours of unscheduled work.

 

70%-80% on my T400.

Over summer, it's usually 50-60% because I don't need the battery for classes.