How Do You Guys Save Battery Power On Your Laptop?

[soymilk]

I have a question. Right now I'm almost using the laptop as a desktop so I always have the power cable connected to my laptop. Is that any good for the laptop battery?

Should I remove the battery and use the power cable only? Or it doesnt really matter.

I have a Dell laptop and I read that if its 100% charged and the power cable is still connected the laptop, it wont charge anymore. Basically it doesnt really affect the battery that much. Is this true...?

[Guest dabrain]

no ... itz not good for the battery to leave the power cable connected to ur laptop...

that increases the chance that ur battery show the memory effect.

a battery consists of a bunch of cells ... if those cells are charged alll the time then after some time they wont uncharge any more... thus the capacity of the battery decreases ...

either u remove the battery and use the power cable only or u charge the battery until it reaches the 100 % and then use the battery only until itz totally uncharged

[Guest OsiX]

Though that is probably true, I do try to use the cord as much as possible. And keep it fully charged as much as possible as well. (as in I don't remove the battery even when its fully charged) but that being said I don't have access to the outlet all the time either so I do use the battery time to time. You should remember, it doesn't matter which brand of laptop you have, all batteries currently have a rough lifetime of 300 full charges (meaning, once you fully charge your battery 300 full cycles, it will not hold the charge very well afterwards).

[DaRkViEt73]

I do not agree about it being bad to leave the power cord plugged in all the time. NiCad (nickel-cadmium) batteries suffer from the memory effect. NiMh (nickel metal hydride) and lithium batteries generally do NOT suffer from the memory effect. In fact, unlike NiCad batteries where it's beneficial to fully discharge then recharge it on occasion, with NiMh batteries you are actually damaging it by doing so. It's much gentlier on NiMh batteries if you do not let it dip below 10-15% of remaining capacity. Also if the battery is 60% full then you charge it to 100%, that does NOT count as a complete charge cycle. So if the expected life is about 300 full charge cycles, you'll end being able to charge it up on more than 300 times since each individual charge isn't a complete cycle.

Since laptops nowadays come with either NiMh or lithium batteries, in my opinion is it's completely safe to leave the plug in. Once the battery is full, it's not being used anyways since the laptop always uses power from the wall when the cord is plugged in. So the battery should last you several years before needing replacement.

To be perfectly fair though... technically if you've got a lithium battery you CAN extend the life of the battery by charging it up fully then removing it from the laptop. Since lithium batteries have very low discharge rates, it can be stored away for extended periods of time without losing all its power. However, in my opinion, the benefits of keeping it installed in your laptop at all times far outweigh the extended life but hassles you have to go thru in removing and installing the batteries everytime you need it.

PS: Since you have a Dell laptop, go here https://www.dellbatteryprogram.com/Default.aspx and check to see if your battery is on recall. This was just announced this week and so far this appears to be the largest battery recall in electronics history. Overheating/exploding batteries is no good.

[awdark]

dabrain, that memory issue became obsolete about 6 years ago when laptops switched from NiCd and NimH (which don't have memory effect either) to Lithium Ion. However, Lithium Ion batteries do sometimes get miscalibrated so it would be beneficial to drain it down to about 20% then charge.

Lithium ion batteries have "intelligent" circuits that will stop charging and or trickle charge to maintain the battery at 100%. So I say leave it plugged in.

A site that might be interesting to read is http://www.batteryuniversity.com/

Just stick to keeping it powered when you can, run on batteries when you need to. In two years the battery won't be very good anyways. In four the battery should be just about worthless... even if you were to just store the battery.

A great example is my pocket pc... I carefully kept the battery charged all the time, never let it drop below 40% except once every two months to make sure the calibration is still good. And you know what? The my other pocket pc where I abuse the battery, drain it to 10% and all that lasts longer than the one I took care of. In other words, it doesn't matter. Just have fun with the battery...