P150EM battery care

hi ALL

I have a question regarding the care of the battery life, i use my laptop mostly as desktop replacement, so i really dont need the battery that much. But have had past experiences on batteries dying just because leaving them plugged in the laptop with the power cord connected, makes them charge too frequently lowering its life.

I have heard the notebook's are "smart" now and dont recharge until the battery is 80% or less charged, but that does not seem to be the case with my clevo. The battery is always showing 100% when plugged in, and if i disconnect it for 5 mins and plug back in it starts charging it back to 100%.

What can i change to avoid killing my battery for no reason? In my older laptop i work with no battery, plugged in, but with this more expensive notebook i am not sure thats necessary or advisable...

i hope you can help me with this.

cheers
Voz

 

If you intend to store a lithium-ion battery for an extended period, i recommend discharging the capacity to 40%. Keep it somewhere dry and cool. BTW, the best thing to do for rechargeable batteries is to keep them from heat--kills the performance otherwise.

 

yeah i have heard that before, but in my case i do move the notebook at least once a day (to go into my bedroom when i have night shift), so i use the battery then, at least for not shutting it down in the move.
The question is if its dangerous to use the PC with no battery (in case of a poweroutage for ex or my bof pulling off the plug).
Also if it can be tweaked so the battery is only charged when it reaches a certain charge % and not when it goes down only 1%...... so i wouldnt need to pull it out at all...

 

I imagine you would have to mod the battery. I believe it uses hardware programmed with charging tables. I really don't know much more than that.

 

I just charge it 100% then take it out and leave it on the side until I have to go to school

 

BatteryCare - FAQ Frequent Asked Questions

 

great link, in my case i should remove the battery (gaming temp clearly damages it). Question remains if possible poweroutages might harm the computer if the battery is removed at the time...

i quote battery care:

 

The problem with leaving batteries at 100% isn't related to overcharging but just general battery wear. Batteries wear down over time, and they wear faster at different percentages. The slowest wear rate is 40% and0 the fastest wear takes place below 20%. 100% is roughly in the middle. So leaving the battery at 100% will cause wear faster than if it discharged it to 40% and removed it (removing it so that it does not gain more charge since you can't limit the charge percentage).

If you move your laptop at times, you have two options. First, you can leave your battery in and leave it being fully charged. Or you could remove it and then power down whenever you want to move your laptop. This is obviously inconveinient, but the boot times on the laptops are pretty fast and if you can deal with it, you may be better off taking the battery out.

On the other hand, it seems like you never unplug your laptop except to move it. If you aren't using the battery now, is there much point in conserving it? It can be a hassle to remove the battery (after storing it, you have to check it every couple of weeks to recharge due to self-discharge) and it makes your laptop (a portable computer) not portable. Since you never use your battery, it might just be worth it to let your battery do its thing. You can buy replacement ones if needs be.

As for whether taking a battery out can cause damage in a power failure, possibly. A sudden loss of power to components can damage the components, but if you have the battery in, you wouldn't lose power. With it out, you would.

 

just to give some numbers, on my np8130, I got about a year and a quarter ago, the battery wear is 16%. I never used the battery that much. Lasts ~2 hours, which isn't brilliant, but the battery life on this laptop never was.

Give me a macbook pro with a 120hz display, and I'll be set.

 

It varies. Most of the "gaming" laptops I've ever owned have been plugged in 95% of the time and battery life has never depleted more than 6-8% a year. It will lose charge even if you DON'T keep it plugged in, just not as much, but honestly the difference is minimal. As I've stated time and again, weigh the cost of the battery that will die over time whether used or not versus damaging your components or losing data because you accidentally knock the cord out or have power outage, etc. You may lose a percent or two less every year, but it will still wear. So after two years it may have lost 15% plugged in but 12% if just left unused and stored. For an $80 component that will have to be replaced anyhow eventually might as well take the safe route, leave it plugged in.

Just remember that people spend hundreds of dollars on battery backups for their desktop PC's. It's a built in safeguard with a laptop.

Your biggest killer of the battery is actually using it (which it was designed for) and high temperature, but in Sager notebooks (and most other gaming notebooks) they are protected from hot system heat. I'd be more concerned about leaving your laptop in a hot car as opposed to plugged in while gaming.

 

Is there absolutely no way to set the battery to recharge only when going down to 90% or lower? that would really help me deciding leaving it in the notebook..

although i see your point clearly, i will probably leave it in...

 

There is no way to do as you suggest unless it's in programmed at the hardware level. It would be a nice feature, at least at 90 or 95% or something. But usually it takes a battery a week or more to drop charge 1% before it would have to charge it again. I know it doesn't charge when it's at 100% or darn close to it. I can leave my laptop unplugged and unused for a couple days, plug it back in, and it won't start to charge. So it's not as bad as it sounds. If it charges it once a week because levels drop to 99%, that's 52 times a year. Technically they say one full discharge / recharge cycle can be 100% drained down to 0% in one go, or 10 times at 10% (ie. drop to 90%, charge to 100%, drop to 90%, charge to 100%... etc), or 100 times at 1%. So in two years time it would have exhausted just one discharge cycle. How accurate that is I don't know, but that's how Li-Ion batteries supposedly work.

 

hummmm

well anyway i am sold that protecting the hardware is a better value than taking care of the battery, maybe in cheaper and older notebooks its worth taking it out, but in a 2000 one its really not.

I am leaving it in for now.