Question about battery management among others

Hey everyone, I recently received the Thinkpad X230 and really like the laptop. I was wondering what is a good method of using the battery. The laptop will stay at the desk half the time.

Should I let Power Manager stick with the default battery settings or choose another mehod? The default option is "Automatically optimize for battery lifespan." I've seen some people here mentioning that a custom charge threshold should be used. If so, what is a good range?

I'm having an issue with Windows updates as its been failing on startup. It always reverts the changes as the Windows updates are not successfully installing. Looking at my update history, 90% of Windows updates have failed. Anyone have any ideas?

I would appreciate any help. Thanks.

 

If you will primarily/only be using the notebook plugged in, you can set the maximum charge to 50% and the minimum charge to 40%, which will keep the battery right around the ideal mark for long-term storage. If, however, you use the notebook regularly on battery power, then you can leave on Lenovo's automatic optimization, which will recalibrate the charge so the battery recognizes 90% charged as 100%. This will allow for decent battery lifespan when it is still used somewhat regularly.

As for the Windows Updates, is there a point before which they were working? If so, you can check to see if you installed something then that could be uninstalled, which might fix things.

 

I will use the laptop on the desktop about half the time. Since I mostly use this laptop in my home, I sometimes like to carry it around. I only plug in the battery when the battery is around 40% and then let it charge up to around 75% then unplug it. Is this approach also good? I'm slightly conflicted if I should continue using the automatic optimization or set a threshold. Basically I'm using a threshold right now but manually

As for the Windows update issue, I think I may have found a similar case and will try to use the fix mentioned there:
x230 problem with windows updates/system config - Page 2 - Lenovo Community

It sounds similar to the problem I'm having with Windows updates.

Thanks.

 

Since you're using a threshold now, it would be easier to set up the same threshold in Power Manager so you don't have to worry about when to plug in or unplug the machine.

 

I use my laptop plugged in about 80% of the time. I normally have my thresholds set to max charge 90% and start charging below 50%. This means most of the time when my laptop is connected it's not charging and only start below 50%.

I am told normally it's the number of charge cycles that kill the battery and also constantly charging it to the maximum 100% capacity. The above threshold address both those issues in my case.