laptop battery fade

flogen

I hear that having a laptop plugged in too much can weaken the battery, meaning you get less time out of it when you actually use it in future.
My laptop, which is more of a mobile desktop (read brick), has a terrible battery life, with it shutting down after a half an hour of basic running, even if I leave it alone and don't do anything with it. It's second hand and has seen better days (I plan on an upgrade once I get the cash), so the battery life was never great but it does seem worse now. Generally speaking I always have it plugged in, is this the reason why?

Karoma

Yes...and to an extent No .
Constantly plugged in = more charge cycles (There's a finite amount of charge cycles a battery can do). However, a Li-ion battery should be topped up rather than recharged completely.. (Damned if you do damned if you don't.. it's a consumable, it'll die either way)

So, really: If you're going to use the unit whilst plugged in for long periods of time, then yes, you should remove the battery (And store the battery somewhere cool). But for other,more general cases - then leave the battery in.

That aside, you will never get a decent battery life with a "desktop replacement". You can reduce power consumption by reducing software running, and disabling some components and reducing fan speed,etc..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion_battery#Guidelines_for_prolonging_Li-ion_battery_life

flogen

many thanks Karoma, to be honest I'm going to leave any tweaking as I hope to have this replaced by the summer at the latest.

The amount of my PC queries you've answered so far, I should just PM you direct instead!

Borderfox

Hi Flogen, it's really a pain with some laptops and their battery life, I have a nearly new Toshiba Satelite L20 and the most I can get out of it is 1hr 15mins whereas the Dell Latitude C610 I have can almost do 4hrs with a new battery granted but still excellent for a P3 866mhz. Have you checked if you can buy a longer lasting battery from the manufacturer something like long life ones to extend operating time....

flogen

tbh I asked the question just so I know when I get a new laptop, I'm not planning on spending any more money on this hunk of junk unless I have to!

Thanks anyway.