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Getting the most out of your laptop battery
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Thomask
Posts: 557 Forumite
in Techie Stuff
Hi guys
Had a question on laptop batterys.
Is it:
a) Better to stay connected to the mains when at home as batterys can only hold charge a certain number of times before they need to be replaced
or
b) Charge the battery when at home and then unplug from the mains and continue to use off the battery as not to charge the whole unit for too long
Thoughts?
Had a question on laptop batterys.
Is it:
a) Better to stay connected to the mains when at home as batterys can only hold charge a certain number of times before they need to be replaced
or
b) Charge the battery when at home and then unplug from the mains and continue to use off the battery as not to charge the whole unit for too long
Thoughts?
0
Comments
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My undersanding is that you should connect the power supply when you can. The laptop will not overcharge or damage the battery.
Battery life is shortened by continuous charge / discharge cycles.
I said that's my understanding
We need facts!
Anyone?0 -
The best thing to do is remove the battery when you dont need to charge it, and just run the laptop from the mains supply.0
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My understanding has always been that the ideal life for a re-chargeable battery would be -
[1] Slow charge until fully charged
[2] Slow discharge until fully discharged
This obviously isn't always practicable, but there is often a recommendation to allow a battery to discharge completely every now and then, rather than having it on charge at every opportunity.".....where it is corrupt, purge it....."0 -
Buy a copy of this month's Personal Computer World - there's a long article about the care and feeding of laptop batteries.0
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Hi,
This article gets rather technical in places but has a good summary at the end.
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm
"[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The worst condition is keeping a fully charged battery at elevated temperatures, which is the case with running laptop batteries. If used on main power, the battery inside a laptop will only last for 12-18 months. I must hasten to explain that the pack does not die suddenly but begins with reduced run-times."
[/FONT]0 -
Apologies, the article appears in 'the other' decent PC magazine, PCPro (p114). I doubt the article will be on the website yet (otherwise fewer people would buy the magazine!), and I couldn't find it on a quick trawl, but it may do in a month's time - if you can wait that long...Thanks - can this be viewed online?0 -
Hi,
This article gets rather technical in places but has a good summary at the end.
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm
"[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The worst condition is keeping a fully charged battery at elevated temperatures, which is the case with running laptop batteries. If used on main power, the battery inside a laptop will only last for 12-18 months. I must hasten to explain that the pack does not die suddenly but begins with reduced run-times."
[/FONT]
very true that.:idea:0 -
I let my battery run right down the other night - until it switched itself off (after switching it back on once it did the auto switch off).
I thought this would be a good idea - to run the battery right down sometimes.
When I next booted it up it took about 4 times as long to start and load applications.
Perhaps this isn't good for it afterall?0 -
I let my battery run right down the other night - until it switched itself off (after switching it back on once it did the auto switch off).
I thought this would be a good idea - to run the battery right down sometimes.
When I next booted it up it took about 4 times as long to start and load applications.
Perhaps this isn't good for it afterall?
That would be nothing to do with the battery, the system made have just powered off / lost power without any shutdown or hibernation kicking in (which would make a subsequent restart take a lot longer as it'll do some error checking). Or something just general with the startup. The state of the battery (unless it is dead) won't affect startup times in general, although some laptops run at a slower processor speed when on battery power, than when connected to the mains to save power...0
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