Extending the life of my laptop's battery...

BaRcOe

Ok I've done a bit of research into this and My main point of Topic is

Taking your battery out while its plugged in AC adaptor means your battery will last longer, tis way the battery won't charge every time i use it. Every battery has its own charge circle, some 200 times, some may be less or more.

Charge your battery only when it run out or when you know you need to use it outdoor next day.

What do you all think,

Any tips on where I should Keep my battery while its out of my laptop(A.K.A Now)

:cool:;)

Voodu Child

The best way to preseve a battery is to discharge it to 40%, take it out and leave it somewhere cool.

That's OTT for most people...what's the point in having a laptop if you're going to go and hide the battery somewhere and never use it? May has well have gotten a desktop. And of course, you've got the risk of snagging the cable and losing your work. And, if you're pulling the battery, you'll also want to disable HDD write-caching (if you're smart), lowering drive performance. So it's a bit counter-productive imo, but each to his own.

The common sense approach is just to not give it a charge/discharge cycle unless necessary. So if you're sitting beside a socket, plug in. If you're not beside a socket, well, that's why you bought a laptop, so don't worry too much about it.

BaRcOe

Most people leave the AC adapter plugged into their laptop and the battery installed. This is not good, for several reasons.

While you might think a laptop should bypass the battery if the AC adapter is connected, in most cases that is not what happens. Instead, the laptop drains some of the energy from the battery, which is then immediately recharged from the AC source. This means that the battery is constantly discharging and recharging (also known as "thrashing"). Since the battery has a finite number of charging cycles, this can lead to premature failure of the battery. Worse, the constant charging means that the battery gets very hot, and that heat can be transferred to the system board, which helps eventually cause general failure of the laptop.

So, what to do? If you are using the laptop in a stationary position, with the AC adapter constantly connected, you can remove the battery from the laptop (when it is powered off and unplugged). This will avoid the problems of discharging/recharging and heat. When you need to use the laptop without the AC adapter, then plug in the battery. If you don't use the battery for a month (or use it sparingly), then unplug the AC adapter, reinsert the battery, and turn on the laptop (but don't plug in the AC adapter); when the warning appears that the battery is almost out of charge, then turn off the computer, plug in the AC adapter, and let the battery fully recharge (time to recharge depends on the battery, check with the manufacturer). Once the battery has fully recharged, you can again remove it from the laptop (if you're planning on running from the AC adapter).

A word of caution: obviously, if you lose AC power, your laptop (without installed battery) will suddenly turn off, much like a desktop -- so it would be a good idea to have the AC adapter plugged into the battery side of a UPS when you're running without the laptop's battery.

With proper care, a laptop battery might surpass the average 3-year lifespan.

Voodu Child

That's just pulled straight from google. It just a post from a regular joe blogs on a different forum. While everyone is entitled to their opinion, what he's saying is incorrect (imo).

Your battery won't keep discharging/charging when plugged in - that's a myth..maybe it was accurate 10 years ago, but modern laptops have sophisticated circuits regulating the charge/discharge cycle and rate. When the circuit decides the battery is charged 100%, that's it, it turns off any current to the battery. You can monitor this with various utilities (the charge/discharge rate)

The temperature of a battery does effect it's lifespan, no question there. Which is why if you do go down the road of pulling the battery and storing it somewhere, it should be a cool place.

AlmightyCushion

voodoo_child wrote: »

The temperature of a battery does effect it's lifespan, no question there. Which is why if you do go down the road of pulling the battery and storing it somewhere, it should be a cool place.

As in fonzie's house.

It doesn't necessarily have to be in a cool place just in a place that will keep it cooler than it would be attached to the laptop.

Capt'n Midnight

AlmightyCushion wrote:

It doesn't necessarily have to be in a cool place just in a place that will keep it cooler than it would be attached to the laptop.

actually it is temperature dependent and would last longest in a fridge.


A lot depends on how the laptop charges the battery. Overcharging is the worst. If your laptop doesn't start recharging until a certain threshold is reached then the battery lasts far longer. I've had one where the battery was never removed and still getting more than three hours after three years. YMMV

IMHO I reckon it's good to discharge it once a month.

Batteries are consumables, they wear out.
I'd rather have a build in UPS for when some unplugs the cable than get an extra few months out of the battery.

how about a heat sink/fan on a battery

as for memory effect, doesn't apply to Lithium batteries
and it only applied to NiCad's when repeatedly subjected to exactly the same level of discharge.

Voodu Child

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I'd rather have a build in UPS for when some unplugs the cable than get an extra few months out of the battery.

Mostly i'm talking about the cord being snagged and pulled out at the laptop end, a UPS isn't going to help there.

Capt'n Midnight

voodoo_child wrote: »

Mostly i'm talking about the cord being snagged and pulled out at the laptop end, a UPS isn't going to help there.

the laptop battery is built in.

AlmightyCushion

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

actually it is temperature dependent and would last longest in a fridge.

I know. What I meant is moving it from a relatively hot area to an area that is room temperature or slightly below would still help preserve the battery.

Capt'n Midnight

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I know. What I meant is moving it from a relatively hot area to an area that is room temperature or slightly below would still help preserve the battery.

Can't argue with that

congo_90

voodoo_child wrote: »

Your battery won't keep discharging/charging when plugged in - that's a myth..maybe it was accurate 10 years ago, but modern laptops have sophisticated circuits regulating the charge/discharge cycle and rate. When the circuit decides the battery is charged 100%, that's it, it turns off any current to the battery. You can monitor this with various utilities (the charge/discharge rate)

I agree completly and as a precaution (imo) the LED icon that illuminates to indicate the battery status of my laptop diverts the current away.

voodoo_child wrote: »

The temperature of a battery does effect it's lifespan, no question there. Which is why if you do go down the road of pulling the battery and storing it somewhere, it should be a cool place.

How much more life are we talking about? My laptop is 3, nearly 4 years old and has suffered every abuse from being dropped to water damage and temperature problems always bounced back. I rarely take the battery out as power loss is common in my area.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Batteries are consumables, they wear out.
I'd rather have a build in UPS for when some unplugs the cable than get an extra few months out of the battery.

Or how about a normal mains supply + a fully charged battery in case the lights do go out? laptop automatically takes power off the battery and unless you need 4hours to shut down and save your work do you not think a UPS is unnessesary? after all that would anchor your laptop down to one or two positions in your house/work place.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

how about a heat sink/fan on a battery

My solution to the heat problem as she kicks out more heat than a cargo plane landing in japan
See attachment. Lol just realised I left the browser running on screen! (those sexy long legs too haha)

cnocbui

Wikipedia has an interesting article on Li-Ion batteries.

Deep discharging of Li-Ions is not good for them. You probably should try not to discharge them more than 50% if it can be helped.

Li-Ions have a limited lifespan and the clock starts ticking the moment they are made, so use and enjoy them while they last.

Fridges, 40% charge and storage, removing them ... They are born to die, use them while you can.

A new manufacturing technology has been developed which claims to eliminate the age deterioration problem, however it will be a year or two before we see batteries manufatured using this tech.

AlmightyCushion

congo_90 wrote: »

Or how about a normal mains supply + a fully charged battery in case the lights do go out? laptop automatically takes power off the battery and unless you need 4hours to shut down and save your work do you not think a UPS is unnessesary? after all that would anchor your laptop down to one or two positions in your house/work place.

I think he was talking about the battery.

BostonB

Batteries are a consumable

Merch

voodoo_child wrote: »

Your battery won't keep discharging/charging when plugged in - that's a myth..maybe it was accurate 10 years ago, but modern laptops have sophisticated circuits regulating the charge/discharge cycle and rate. When the circuit decides the battery is charged 100%, that's it, it turns off any current to the battery. You can monitor this with various utilities (the charge/discharge rate)

What laptop do you have? I dont believe I have such a feature on mine that allows my laptop to discharge battery, detect its discharged and then recharge.
If I plugged it in half charged (the few occasions I did that to it) it would charge up then stay at full charge. Usually let it discharge first then switch on power.

Dont get me wrong I wish it did. For extending the life I was recommended to full discharge/charge the battery and run laptop separately when at home.
Tried this and even slight movement of the power cord (few times it happened) cuts power.

Apart from the fact my original 6cell battery was always rubbish and never lived up to its stated life from charge to discharge no matter how low I set power settings, I treated it well regards charging and it steadily got worse, at most its 16mins total life now.
I got a second 9cell battery early on and its life (fingers crossed) is quite good.
I use the original 6cell in laptop all the time, unless I bring it somewhere where I dont want to bring the charger like to the kitchen rarely goes further than that :pac:
I def would like that feature of managing charging battery, switching over to a common internal bus and switching off power/battery without having to plug out/remove batt.
If such a feature exists on a particualr make or Id be interested to know.

congo_90

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I think he was talking about the battery.

ah got ya now sorry about that. I mis-understood

Merch

voodoo_child wrote: »

Your battery won't keep discharging/charging when plugged in - that's a myth..maybe it was accurate 10 years ago, but modern laptops have sophisticated circuits regulating the charge/discharge cycle and rate. When the circuit decides the battery is charged 100%, that's it, it turns off any current to the battery. You can monitor this with various utilities (the charge/discharge rate).

What laptop do you have? I dont believe I have such a feature on mine that allows my laptop to discharge battery, detect its discharged and then recharge.
If I plugged it in half charged (the few occasions I did that to it) it would charge up then stay at full charge. Usually let it discharge first then switch on power.

Dont get me wrong I wish it did. For extending the life I was recommended to full discharge/charge the battery and run laptop separately when at home.
Tried this and even slight movement of the power cord (few times it happened) cuts power.

Apart from the fact my original 6cell battery was always rubbish and never lived up to its stated life from charge to discharge no matter how low I set power settings, I treated it well regards charging and it steadily got worse, at most its 16mins total life now.
I got a second 9cell battery early on and its life (fingers crossed) is quite good.
I use the original 6cell in laptop all the time, unless I bring it somewhere where I dont want to bring the charger like to the kitchen rarely goes further than that
I def would like that feature of managing charging battery, switching over to a common internal bus and switching off power/battery without having to plug out/remove batt.
If such a feature exists on a particualr make or Id be interested to know.

Voodu Child

Merch wrote: »

What laptop do you have? I dont believe I have such a feature on mine that allows my laptop to discharge battery, detect its discharged and then recharge.

I don't follow, I believe you have misread/misunderstood something.

Merch

Your battery won't keep discharging/charging when plugged in - that's a myth..maybe it was accurate 10 years ago, but modern laptops have sophisticated circuits regulating the charge/discharge cycle and rate. When the circuit decides the battery is charged 100%, that's it, it turns off any current to the battery. You can monitor this with various utilities (the charge/discharge rate).

Your post suggests that you can monitor this (charging) with certain utlities, it says when the battery is charged that it detects this and switches charging off and presumably lives off the power from the charger?

I dont have this feature on my laptop (to monitor)
Id be happy if it existed if it does I'll be going for that type/brand of laptop next time I'm looking for a replacement.

Merch

BaRcOe wrote: »

Most people leave the AC adapter plugged into their laptop and the battery installed. This is not good, for several reasons.

While you might think a laptop should bypass the battery if the AC adapter is connected, in most cases that is not what happens. Instead, the laptop drains some of the energy from the battery, which is then immediately recharged from the AC source. This means that the battery is constantly discharging and recharging (also known as "thrashing"). Since the battery has a finite number of charging cycles, this can lead to premature failure of the battery. Worse, the constant charging means that the battery gets very hot, and that heat can be transferred to the system board, which helps eventually cause general failure of the laptop.

I believe barcoe is correct here, I'm open to be mistaken, and happy to be proved wrong as I'd prefer it was the case.

I agree completley and as a precaution (imo) the LED icon that illuminates to indicate the battery status of my laptop diverts the current away.

As for the LED illuminating?? to me that indicates battery is charged, it doesn't necessarily divert the charging current away unless a technical manual says otherwise, thats what I'd imagine.

All I have to go on is
My 6 cell battery to start with was not great and steadily got worse, now In only leave it in as my UPS. It gets warm, very warm even hot.
On the other hand I always fully discharge my 9cell batt and fully recharge it, after a full charge, I usually swap it out with the 6 cell or switch off the mains and use it till it fully discharges, it wont even be warm once it reaches 100% charge either.
The shop I was sold it in recommended I charge batt, switch off power, remove battery and run on mains/charger as it significantly increases the life of the batt. (both 6+9 cellLiIon)

I'm open to suggestions, these are my opinions and experience, thats why I was asking what laptop you have as I'm interested to look into that make in the future,as I would like some feature that switched over to the DC supply from the charger once the batt is 100% charged or allowed me some control over switching/removing my battery with having to switch off/hard stopping my laptop.

On the other hand friend of mine had a mobile phone (early gsm) that had a discharge feature so you could eliminate battery memory by discharging before recharging, now that was either a great feature they had/needed as batteries were not as good or they realised batteries would last longer and we'd buy less that way (prob NiCd)

Im not sure batt memory isnt a problem for LIon as my 6 cell laptop batt has gone to ****e after year and half but the 9 cell which has been given the deluxe treatment is great (fingers crossed it stays that way)
Open to suggestions :pac:

Voodu Child

I dont have this feature on my laptop (to monitor)
Id be happy if it existed if it does I'll be going for that type/brand of laptop next time I'm looking for a replacement.

Ah, theres all sorts of utlities that'll give you information about the battery and its current status; depends of course on the system and just how much info it is capable of reading. Same as temp monitors, cpu clock monitors etc. Loads of utilities, google around and im sure you'll find something that suits. Usually though, the laptop will come with a utility out of the box that gives enough info for most people.

There's an example of what mine will read:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a170/vairish/Untitled-5.jpg
If I unplug it, it'll show the discharge rate, and vice versa when it's recharging, and it can read (from the batteries own circuit) the capacity versus the design capacity. Of course, you have to calibrate the battery every now and then by giving it a proper cycle.

congo_90

*edit*

Merch wrote: »

I believe barcoe is correct here, I'm open to be mistaken, and happy to be proved wrong as I'd prefer it was the case.

I agree completley and as a precaution (imo) the LED icon that illuminates to indicate the battery status of my laptop diverts the current away.

As for the LED illuminating?? to me that indicates battery is charged, it doesn't necessarily divert the charging current away unless a technical manual says otherwise, thats what I'd imagine.

All I have to go on is
My 6 cell battery to start with was not great and steadily got worse, now In only leave it in as my UPS. It gets warm, very warm even hot.
On the other hand I always fully discharge my 9cell batt and fully recharge it, after a full charge, I usually swap it out with the 6 cell or switch off the mains and use it till it fully discharges, it wont even be warm once it reaches 100% charge either.

I'm not qualified in computer hardware but the LED idea was just my 2 cents I know ya can't run 12V through an led but I just thought of semi conductors..anyhow I'm sure most laptops (modern) automatically switch. For example if i dim the screen on my laptop while on AC and leave full bright when onDC and pull the plug it reverts to my battery settings automatically.

Right now my laptop is pi$$ing out heat as always but i've got a green battery icon and windows also tells me when the battery is fully charged (control panel> power settings).

Strange about your 6cell, perhaps its slightly damaged? if it's getting pretty hot I'd suggest not using as if I remember correctly you said it only last 16mins anyways? Also if it's getting hot then it could eventually cook your laptop motherboard and HDD?

Having said all the above I dunno how many cells are in my laptop battery nor do I mind at this time as after nearly 4 years use i'll still get about 70% it's original capacity running several programs and I never went out of my way to put it in a fridge when not in use etc

Merch

I must look up and see what utilities are available, all I have is power options in control panel, I cannot find anything else anywhere that monitors cpu temp, discharge etc, It maybe that its there and cant find it but dont think on my laptop.
My 6cell batt just lasted 9 minutes from full charge this morning :mad:

When connected to the mains/DC charger I wish there was the ability to swap over to an internal power bus when the batt is charged and run off the mains/charger.
I dont think that is in any manufacturers interest to prolong customers batt life as most know nothing about it, re my post earlier about my friends old mobile.

If Im looking at anything in the future it will be ultra portable netbook or smaller but it must have exceptional batt life.

Thats me done I think:)