How frequently do you discharge your laptop battery ?

A

I am a stay at home laptop user, I don't carry it around much but I generally run my laptop on battery(except when I am playing games, during which time the laptop remains plugged in)...I use the laptop battery like my mobile phone(100% charge then discharge till 10% and then recharge...repeat).

Is this a good practise ?, will it reduce the battery life(number of years the battery will be in a good condition) ?

Many people suggest to run a laptop completely off the mains if you are not carrying it around.Don't know which practise is better.

Suggestions ?

Cheers!
Abhijit

D

AbhMkh said:
I am a stay at home laptop user, I don't carry it around much but I generally run my laptop on battery(except when I am playing games, during which time the laptop remains plugged in)...I use the laptop battery like my mobile phone(100% charge then discharge till 10% and then recharge...repeat).

Is this a good practise ?, will it reduce the battery life(number of years the battery will be in a good condition) ?

Many people suggest to run a laptop completely off the mains if you are not carrying it around.Don't know which practise is better.

Suggestions ?

Cheers!
Abhijit

Exactly the question which I have. Will be looking forward to some advice.

It is a good practice to discharge the battery. If you keep it at 100% charge all the time then it's life is drastically reduced. Heat also reduces battery life. It is advised that you should calibrate it at least once a month. To manually calibrate it, charge it to 100% and then discharge it to 0%.
There are software available which does the same.
Lenovo laptops have an unfair advantage here. They have a special Energy management app. This keep the charge level 50-60% and keeps on discharging and charging which keeps the battery healthy.

A

seamon said:
It is a good practice to discharge the battery. If you keep it at 100% charge all the time then it's life is drastically reduced. Heat also reduces battery life. It is advised that you should calibrate it at least once a month. To manually calibrate it, charge it to 100% and then discharge it to 0%.
There are software available which does the same.
Lenovo laptops have an unfair advantage here. They have a special Energy management app. This keep the charge level 50-60% and keeps on discharging and charging which keeps the battery healthy.

No unfair advantage. Dell and HP too have such battery management software's pre-installed(they just don't have a fancy interface that is all)

I know about the calibration thing, the question is should you use your battery all the time or always run the laptop on mains.

AbhMkh said:
No unfair advantage. Dell and HP too have such battery management software's pre-installed(they just don't have a fancy interface that is all)

I know about the calibration thing, the question is should you use your battery all the time or always run the laptop on mains.

If they did then I wouldn't be looking for a software which will keep my Dell Inspiron at 50-60% charge like Lenovo so the battery remains healthy. No software does that except Lenovo's awesome Power management. If someone finds it then share, I desperately need it for my Dell Inspiron 15.

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Lenovo laptop=run it on mains all the time.
Other brand=discharge frequently.

Just be casual about battery usage pattern.

Keep it mostly on a/c, say 60-70% of the time. Never use either a/c or battery, prolong.

Plus don't play heavy, continuous games on battery.

Also, don't believe blindly on battery wear.

PS: no need to get overtly tense over this issue.

A

seamon said:
If they did then I wouldn't be looking for a software which will keep my Dell Inspiron at 50-60% charge like Lenovo so the battery remains healthy. No software does that except Lenovo's awesome Power management. If someone finds it then share, I desperately need it for my Dell Inspiron 15.

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Lenovo laptop=run it on mains all the time.
Other brand=discharge frequently.

*i.imgur.com/jDw0TS3.jpg

AbhMkh said:
*i.imgur.com/jDw0TS3.jpg

Thanks. arguing with you yields some interesting and beneficial consequences. I love to do it.

seamon said:
It is a good practice to discharge the battery. If you keep it at 100% charge all the time then it's life is drastically reduced. Heat also reduces battery life. It is advised that you should calibrate it at least once a month. To manually calibrate it, charge it to 100% and then discharge it to 0%.
There are software available which does the same.
Lenovo laptops have an unfair advantage here. They have a special Energy management app. This keep the charge level 50-60% and keeps on discharging and charging which keeps the battery healthy.

First part, rubbish.

Second part, true to the fact that it just increases charge cycles, thus longevity, not battery life. It just "streches" it. Also, it comes at a cost of battery backup. So no unfair advantage there. Sony also has it.

dashing.sujay said:
Just be casual about battery usage pattern.

Keep it mostly on a/c, say 60-70% of the time. Never use either a/c or battery, prolong.

Plus don't play heavy, continuous games on battery.

Also, don't believe blindly on battery wear.

PS: no need to get overtly tense over this issues.

this +1 : D

I have a 2.5 yr old laptop with still 11% wear level and a respectable 4 hrs of reading time. I follow my own scheme which involves maximum use of AC,if required,never use heavy apps on battery and calibrating battery once every 3 months.

swiftshashi said:
I have a 2.5 yr old laptop with still 11% wear level and a respectable 4 hrs of reading time. I follow my own scheme which involves maximum use of AC,if required,never use heavy apps on battery and calibrating battery once every 3 months.

and my 3 year old laptop's old battery gave 10 mins of battery life. I used to plug it in 100% of the time.

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dashing.sujay said:
First part, rubbish.

Second part, true to the fact that it just increases charge cycles, thus longevity, not battery life. It just "streches" it. Also, it comes at a cost of battery backup. So no unfair advantage there. Sony also has it.

Please. It's a good idea to calibrate batteries once in a while. Maybe once a month is too much but still.....

*lifehacker.com/why-calibrating-your-phone-or-laptop-battery-is-importa-1437221519

Calibration is mostly done to correct misreadings. Anyway, my approach worked best for me, and for whom I suggested, so I said.

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swiftshashi said:
I have a 2.5 yr old laptop with still 11% wear level and a respectable 4 hrs of reading time. I follow my own scheme which involves maximum use of AC,if required,never use heavy apps on battery and calibrating battery once every 3 months.

You got one hell of a battery.

btw does your battery really run for 4 hrs or just shows ?

After getting mine I also read thousand articles about the same thing. And every different article told different thing! Just got confused. But if there is one constant thing there, that is discharging and charging the battery just increases the charging cycle, thus reducing it's longevity.
Anyway, I keep mine always plugged in, by always I mean always. Maybe 5/10 minutes it runs on battery every day as I take it from my study to bed at night, thus that time it can't be plugged in. And I am not finding Lenovo's Power Management software of any work. I set mine to start charging when below 30%, and stop when at 96%. God knows why, but it never does that! How do you people get it work?

M

i read somewhere that we shoulg never discharge LI-IOn batteries fully.
the lowest we should go is 15-20 percent.
never go below that.
any comments ?
I also heard about that when a laptop gets fully charged,
and is still plugged in, the laptop then runs using the AC power, not using the battery power. and shifts to the battery power once the AC power is removed.
what part of these do you guys believe is tru.
i have been running my laptop like keep[ it on AC untill i need to take it outside.
and i never let it go below 15 percent. (mostly i stop at 20 percent.)

cant get what battery calibration is and how to do it.
and what it does.

i too have a lenovo laptop (G510, essential)
didn't find any "fancy" power management software yet.

Never. Always plugged in. And off the port only when I'm out.

My Samsung asked me if I wanted to restrict the charging peak to 80% to increase the life of battery. And the service technician who replaced a faulty battery advised me to charge the battery completely and then run off it until it reaches around 20% and then plug it in and charge it while switched off for best life.

Some research online also advised a similar strategy of keeping the charge between 40 - 80% and to charge when powered off.

Ultimately it all comes down to your convenience. It would be rather inconvenient to follow all the advice exactly. Select based on your convenience and not battery life. Ultimately you bought a laptop for convenience!

the battery's dead

. Laptop is always plugged in.

Laptop always plugged in since day 1...

powerhoney said:
Laptop always plugged in since day 1...

mine too.

A

Makes me wonder, if your laptop is always plugged in then why not buy a desktop.

AbhMkh said:
Makes me wonder, if your laptop is always plugged in then why not buy a desktop.

Hostel!!!

I am going to college pretty soon. No point in getting a desktop.

M

powerhoney said:
Hostel!!!

yep.
not much room and table for desktop.
and most of the time, mine is on AC, 30- 35 % time: on battery power.

AbhMkh said:
Makes me wonder, if your laptop is always plugged in then why not buy a desktop.

not enough extra space for a desktop table and/or need portability.

dashing.sujay said:
Calibration is mostly done to correct misreadings. Anyway, my approach worked best for me, and for whom I suggested, so I said.

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You got one hell of a battery.

btw does your battery really run for 4 hrs or just shows ?

Sorry for pretty late reply.
My usage-
*Plugged in 90% of the time. When on battery I really ensure no heavy usage like HD movies/games etc. Only Ebook reading or browsing.
*Calibrate battery once every month.

Today's condition.
Battery Wear-10%
Battery(along with notebook) is nearing 3 years life. Still on a full charge it gives about
-5 hours of Ebook reading life. Power Saving Power Plan with 50% brightness/Intel HD/WIn 8.1/SSD
-3.5-4 hours of browsing on Wifi
-2.5-3 hours of Videos/Music etc.
And these values are the ones given by laptop in actual world,and not shown. I never pay attention to that crap which is shown at bottom.

No matter what people say,I have read that these practices are good for battery health. 100% plugged in also kills battery due to heat etc,while heavy usage like playing BF4 on battery kills it. I have followed these very religiously,and it has gifted me the best ever battery life on a Gaming laptop I hav ever seen( I am talking of 6 cells). Mind you,mine is a HP(famous for heating,but rarely heats up in my experience) with a Core i7(known to be a battery killer) with a strong GPU.
So if I am concerned,I will always advice people to use laptop battery lightly,and rarely.
BUTTTT-Having it always plugged in will also kill the battery in the long run. It actually decreases the charge retention capability of the Li ions. If you fall under this category,I recommend calibration once every two months.