power source advise for daily usage

Hello all,

Recently got a new Thinkpad SL400, and my first post here...

A generic question about preserving the battery;

May laptop is stationary all the time so I always use it with the mains power supply with the battery in place, then I hibernate or switch off laptop & mains power for the night, and switch on again next day, with the battery still in place.

Is it better I pack away the battery and instead use the mains socket power through a small UPS for daily use, so that I can use battery on occasions when I'm mobile?

Thanks for any feedback.

 

to increase the battery life span it is better that you keep the battery charged to 95% level, 100% level may cause degradation to battery cells if it is kept in the same state for a long time.

Also, start the battery charging at below 70% (usually 40 to 60 % is also okay), to prevent top up charging which is bad for the battery longevity.

 

And, in addition to what lead_org mentions, I personally think you should keep the battery in. You paid for it, so might as well use it! No?

 

Battery won't degrade in significant way unless you keep you charging and discharging it, which is something that is minimized with the settings that are proposed.

Also, battery act as UPS, which most corporation and business with data sensitive work uses, and some businesses i know have switched to laptops purely because the desktop grade UPS cost more to maintain and give less juice time. (Most friends i talk too have all experienced a sudden power out in their home or work, and swears that they would never use any machines to do their work without a UPS or battery installed).

Also, if you have the 65 watt adapter, running the laptop without the battery would prevent the CPU running at its full power.

 

Thanks for the reply, so which means the best practice is:

1) I pull the mains plug before starting up the laptop
2) Work until the battery runs down to below 70% level
3) Ad then replug the laptop

...and continue this cycle regularly(?)

 

you can set the charging behaviour in the thinkvantage power manager under battery maintenance. In there you can set at what level to start charging and what battery level to stop charging.

 

checked but theres no thinkvantage in my laptop (except fingerprint S/W), need to download the toolbox I think. Once again thanks. Now enjoying some lounge music on media player internet radio

 

you should install it, the windows power manager will cause your battery to degrade faster than the Thinkvantage power manager.

 

My opinion is, and has always been, for the most part just use the battery in a way that best suits your needs. So what if it degrades 5-10 percent faster? These things are not terribly expensive. Just replace it with a new one after 1.5-2 years and be happy knowing your battery is always ready to do your bidding whenever you want it to—that piece of mind is worth the 8-12 dollars you are attempting to save over the life the battery.

 

Some people are just very tight when it comes to purchase extra accessories for their laptops, whether it is financial reason or personal habits. You constantly see people complain about having to spend couple of dollars extra on things.

If people didn't really care about the money involved, then ecoupons wouldn't have take off. And most people wouldn't wait for sales and discounts.

Also, if everyone used the battery in an economical manner, it also produces environmental benefits, as it would decrease the amount of e-wastes. It all adds up when there are millions and millions of laptops around. So even if you can afford it and don't really care about the money, think about the planet.

 

the main reason for me is that a brand new replacement battery (dell latitude) has in past costed me $150 + the hassle to source it, so its worth setting up the system to maintain it.

Does the Thinkvantage power manager automatically take over management upon installation? Also, I couldn't find the auto charge-discharge using a percentage threshold option in thinkvantage which you earlier mentioned.

 

i think the SL series never had the ability to set custom charge threshold, i will have a look at this for you. This is another reason why the SL series is not a real Thinkpad.