New Laptop - how do I maximise battery life?

Hungerdunger

Santa was kind enough to bring me a new laptop this Christmas. Having seen the battery life on my old one decrease from over 3 hours to around 20 minutes, I'm keen to make the new battery last as long as possible, but have received conflicting advice on how to do this.

Bearing in mind that the laptop can be connected to the mains for around 80% of the time I'm using it, which of the following pieces of advice would you recommend?

1) Remove the battery from the laptop on all occasions when it isn't needed and run it from the mains.

2) Leave the battery in the laptop and keep the mains lead attached to the laptop whenever you can.

3) Use the battery to power the laptop, and only connect to the mains to recharge the battery.

closed

the first one

bikerchris

I would agree with No. 1 and 3. and ignore No. 2.

Batteries are like muscles, the less you use them (i.e. like No. 2), the less powerful they become. I have seen possibly hundreds of laptops by now and seen first hand how to reduce the lifespan duration of a battery.

It sounds annoying, but erratic usage is best. So for instance, one day, fully charge the battery and then after you use it for your claimed 20% of battery time, when it comes to returning to power - Do not plug in the mains. Continue using it on batteries until it gets low (10% approx. but before it annoyingly shuts down on you).

you are perfectly fine to run for several hours or days with the mains power plugged in. but it will occasionally (weekly or monthly at worst) need to use the battery, even if it's just down to 50%.

Battery technology has changed, batteries used to have a 'memory' of sorts, but these days they do not. However, they still need exercising as per my 'muscle metaphor' (sorry, I know it's bad humour!).

The worst thing to do to a laptop is have it plugged in constantly, as the battery never gets loaded (or 'worked'). Also, if you're the type that fully charges your laptop and uses it until the batteries dead before re-charging it (a daily routine), it's worth bearing in mind that it can only do 'so many' charge cycles before it will require replacing.

I hope that's useful and I haven't bored anyone into unconsciousness.

lilac_rainbow

Just don't do what I did and drop it :undecided It went from 3 hours to one hour that day

John_Gray

The Battery University website is worth exploring. An enormous battery of information! :T

free4440273

I essentially run my laptops/netbooks from the mains; so, once a week I run only from the battery/ discharge/ recharge ///

thescouselander

You need to use the battery to keep it good. I use the battery on my Laptop daily and it still has 94% of its capacity after over 2 years.

If you remove the battery and leave it it lying round when it is fully charged the capacity will be affected. If you are going to remove the battery and not use it you need to make sure it is at 50% charge.


Also try not to discharge the battery too deeply - I dont usually let the battery in my laptop get below 30%.

HappyMJ

closed wrote: »

the first one

bikerchris wrote: »

Batteries are like muscles, the less you use them (i.e. like No. 2), the less powerful they become.

thescouselander wrote: »

You need to use the battery to keep it good.

So which one is it? I have always left the battery in the laptop whilst plugged into the mains. It works as a uninteruptable power supply that way. I work in IT and can tell you in my experience there is very little you can do do extend the life of the current generation of batteries. Dropping them will break them. They tend to last about 3 years then require replacing which may be before the end of life of the laptop so it may be worth replacing. If they are unplugged they will lose power gradually and you don't really want them at zero power for long as they may not have enough energy to recharge.

free4440273

I have always left the battery in the laptop whilst plugged into the mains.

^ me too/

free4440273 wrote: »

I essentially run my laptops/netbooks from the mains; so, once a week I run only from the battery/ discharge/ recharge ///

thescouselander

I have lots of experience with Lithium based batteries as I have been using them in my electrically powered RC planes for years. You need to keep a close eye on battery capacity because you need to know how long the plane will fly without unexpectedly dropping out of the air due to the battery running out.

The consensus in the RC modelling community is that batteries last longer when you use them regularly. I have found this to be true through practical experience too. If you cant use the battery for some reason they should be stored at 40-50% charge. Lithium batteries don't really self discharge but in the case of a laptop battery there is built in circuitry that may cause some drain - in that case you do need to take the battery out of storage and use it occasionally to keep the charge level within the correct limits.

Hungerdunger

Thanks to everyone who took the trouble to reply. Unfortunately I'm not very much wiser as each option has been recommended at least once!

I think on balance I'll go for the option of keeping it permanently plugged into the mains with a weekly discharge/recharge.