Getting the most out of a new laptop battery

GLaDOS

Hi everyone, I've ordered a new laptop to replace my current one, and want to know the dos and don'ts on how to treat my new laptop battery. My current laptop battery is completely gone (laptop won't turn on if the battery is in) and from what I can gather, it's because I used to keep it plugged in all the time, even when the battery was full. Obviously I want to avoid this situation with my new laptop.

Additionally, how much do I need to charge the battery when I'm using it for the first time?

Many thanks, and if this has been done before feel free to direct me there, did a quick search but may have missed it.

Four of a kind

ScienceNerd wrote: »

Hi everyone, I've ordered a new laptop to replace my current one, and want to know the dos and don'ts on how to treat my new laptop battery. My current laptop battery is completely gone (laptop won't turn on if the battery is in) and from what I can gather, it's because I used to keep it plugged in all the time, even when the battery was full. Obviously I want to avoid this situation with my new laptop.

Additionally, how much do I need to charge the battery when I'm using it for the first time?

Many thanks, and if this has been done before feel free to direct me there, did a quick search but may have missed it.

I've wanted to know this as well

I always used to keep my laptop charging while using it, and I will be getting a new one after Christmas and I would like to know the best way to treat the battery.

Alanstrainor

At this stage, I just use my laptop in whatever way suits. Which is having it plugged in 80% of the time, and on battery the rest. I have seen laptops that would sit in the charger for 99% of the time retain their charge for years, and at the same time I have seen laptops where the battery will die in a year no matter how it is used.

imitation

+1 Alanstrainor

Yeah, there is this really annoying urban myth about the "memory effect" where if a battery isn't discharged and recharged on a regular basis it will loose capacity. This however only happened to a certain type of battery that hasn't been used in any laptop (if ever) since the mid 90s !

Modern Li-ion battery's are normally very good, I have a few 5 year old devices that are still going strong with the original batterys. On the other hand I have an acer battery that died in under a year (and there battery warranty was only 6 months talk about BS).


The main thing to watch out for is a so called deep discharge, if a Li-Ion battery is completely discharged it will actually destroy itself. There is electronics in place to prevent this in daily use (ie 0% in windows doesn't mean there isn't some life left in the battery), but if you are going to shelf the laptop for 6 months make sure you charge it before hand.

There is some other advice about doing a full discharge and recharge 3 times with a new device, and then afterwards recharging it before it goes below 50%. I guess it doesn't hurt it, but I don't think the gains are particularly massive (probably a few %). There is a lot of battery management both in the battery itself and in the laptop itself, so I would be pretty happy to leave it work away and use it suits me.

GLaDOS

Thanks for the advice guys. My current laptop is an Acer and my sister had trouble with her battery, also an Acer, interesting trend...

New laptop is a Samsung so hopefully it's a bit better.

Ganymede Glow

The battery on my Dell went so when I got a new one the instructions were to let it go down to as low as 2% then plug it in to charge fully. Don't know if this applies to all laptops though