Taking care of Toshiba batteries?

OK I just read the manual for my laptop but its kind of confusing. Is either telling me that I should let the battery die each month then charge it again to maximize its life OR I should only charge the battery/put the AC adapter power cord if its low or on critical percentage then it charge each time it happens. Which would you guys recommend?

 

I'd deplete the battery until it hits the 20-30% mark each month and then recharge it - that's what I do with my notebooks. If you're not going to use the notebook for an extended period of time (a week or more), deplete the battery to about 40-60% depending on the period of time (leave in more power for longer period of time you're not going to be using your notebook).

 

Its only been a few days I've had this laptop and I charged it all the way on the first day. Its around 60% right now [its depleting pretty fast].. so I guess it wouldnt be bad to use the AC power adapter once it reaches 10% or below? Is it bad to recharge your battery more than once in a single month?

OK I just tweaked a few settings on my laptop for long life performance [settings without the AC adapter].
+ Screen brightness all lvl 1
+ Power down settings: Monitor OFF, HDD power standoff, and system standby all set down to 1%.

I'm just wondering if this is safe settings? I really dont mind the high performance because I want my battery to last pretty long lol. I noticed that the battery percentage is taking more longer to deplete which is good ^^. Any other settings I should tweak? Not sure about the CPU processing speed.. definately not the cooling system.

 

Btw, is it also safe to plug in the AC adapter into the laptop and remove the batteries then turn the laptop on?

 

That's safe.

 

OK, so if I leave the AC adapter into my laptop w/ main batteries the whole time, I can overcharge it this way cant I? How can I maximize my batteries life? I plan to keep my laptop at home most of the time.

 

It won't overcharge. It's only dangerous to leave the battery in if the battery area becomes hot when the laptop is operating. This is because high temperatures reduce battery life. Mine stays at a normal temperature so I leave the battery in all the time. I have the M100-JG2 laptop.

 

I would say deplete your battery to the levels I specified in my other post every 2 weeks to a month - that'll maximize battery life.

 

Having been a toshiba owner for several years now, I feel confident saying that draining your battery to ~30% is a very good thing for it. I do this regularly taking my laptop to classes and after three years I still get nearly the same battery life I did when I first bought it. Toshiba batteries give solid performance, in my experience.

 

Dragonesse, do you mean drain it to 30% every 2 weeks or 1 month and then let it charge back up again? I'm almost always plugged in so my battery stays at 100% all the time. I know I should drain it every few weeks but I haven't been doing it lately.

 

Ok, I understand using the full battery capacity with NiCads or NiMH to prevent cell memory, but I thought lithium technology fixed this problem. These are all lithium ion batteries correct? Any thoughts on why this is necessary?

 

One thing I know is that they say you should fully drain the battery every now and then to keep the battery's internal circuitry accurate so that it will continue to accurately report its capacity. Apparently if you never empty it, it will lose track of things..