How to get the most out of your laptop!

[askomiele]

What do you recommend to do! Some people say you have to plug your laptop to charge only when not using. When they plug it in, they remove the battery. Others just work on them while charging but they only charge when the bat is totally empty! What do you guys think?

 

[dj-gabriele]

Deep discharging is bad for lithium batteries, but what really matters it's the storage temperature: forgetting your laptop with the battery at 100% charge in your car a few times, can really halve the capacity!

Removing the battery every time will work loose the connectors and holder and you risk damaging it. On my old 4 years laptop the battery went from 3 hours fully charged to 15 minutes gradually until I replaced it with my current one. I used it less and already, after 6 months charge went from 3:30 to 2:30 hours. Who knows!

 

[vacfanatic]

Laptop Batteries

Never last me more than about a year, year and a half. Save up $10 a month and plan to replace it once a year is what I do. I've had 8 or 9 laptops - batteries never last as long as they should for the outrageous price they charge. The laptop in my current Sony VAIO is about $150 to replace.

Andrew

 

[macboy91si]

Lith Ion

In my experience, running them down (within 15%) and recharging works good. Lithium batteries also from what I understand DO like to be cycled, but not fully drained otherwise they degrade. Phones and laptop batteries never last as long when kept on the charger as opposed to at least lightly cycled. We deal with it a lot at work with people that travel with their laptops. The ones that always leave the charger attached go through a battery a year, others that actually use the batteries have gotten up to 4 years from a Dell LION battery. My PERSONAL experience also confirms this, my Acer Netbook is over 2 years old and I still get 2 hours out of it. My original capacity was about 2.5 hours so I'll take that loss I'm not sure if it's the heat from being on the charger or oxidation that causes them to degrade when left on a charger though. I run my netbook down to about 30% usually, sometimes all the way and it seems to do fine. I have to admit though, I've been guilty of leaving it on the charger lately as it's been my main PC until I finish moving.

NiCad's had issues with memory effect and partial charges or leaving on the charger. One could freeze a NiCad battery and smack it on the counter to fix it though. I have several old Mac laptops that this actually worked for. Apparently it breaks up the crystals that form in the NiCad battery that cause the memory effect.

-Tim

 

[richardc1983]

What I dont understand is that if you leave the charger connected if the battery is full the laptop switches the charging process off so the charger should be able to be left connected.

Older laptops I would have thought the battery would continue to charge.

 

[askomiele]

Well it not the charging...

I guess that the charing process is the biggest enemy. I thing the heat is a bigger one. Is'nt it?