blonde poker forum

I was wondering if you should exercise your laptop battery?   I don't mean putting it on a treadmill and feeding it veggie squash.  Are you suppose to let the battery drain down once in a while rather than using AC power constantly?    I keep mine plugged in all the time and rarely use the battery.   Earlier I got my new laptop and had to phone the technical support line to ask a few questions, the guy I spoke to mentioned something about using the battery a few times a week to preserve it?

Will using the battery do anything for maintaining long life?

thanks

i had a similar conversation with my (techie) cousin at the weekend.  He reckons you should let the battery run down every now and again.  I only do this by mistake (like the other day when I thought my laptop had died  :blonde:)

I'm on my 3rd battery in a bit less than 3 years...... Ist one completely failed, 2nd one has enough power to start up and thats it.  So this time I've decided to remove it from the laptop unless I'm away.  My battery is Lithium and these are apparently unaffected by "training".

dont blame the lappy for a blonde moment LOL

The battery is most likely lithium-ion (Li-ion). Which has no memory effect. It is good for about 1000 cycles, everytime you discharge it that is one less.

The only way to preserve the batteries life is to not use it.

I often use the laptop without the battery in when I am at home on the sofa with it plugged in.

It does depend on the battery type.  The new-fangled ones don't have a 'memory' and so don't need to be drained regularly like doubleup said.  The older type though can have a veyr short life if they aren't put through their charge/discharge cycle frequently (so I've been told).

why do batteries last so short? mine only lasts like 3 hours max, I donno if mine is faulty, but Id have thougt in this day and age they would have super duper batteries that could last long time.

who is that in your avatar totalise?  Is it the backstreet boys?

The problem is that computers need more and more power. The batteries are super duper (ish) - but the computers are using much more power than they used to.

If the batteries get much more powerful then they essentially become bombs.

the one and only lyrical wizards!

yeah, good point, forgot about the computers advancing as much as the batteries! d'oh

When you run hot, it's tough on the battery!

Also if you buy a £1500 laptop you get a 8-10 hour battery life.

If you buy a £300 laptop you get a 2-3 hour life.

Most laptops use Li-ion batteries as I've said, no memory effect. Very old ones were Ni-cd - very prone to memory effect and poor power to weight ratio. In between was Ni-MH, and some use this these days but not many. I think these have a memory effect but not that bad, and I'd have to look it up to be sure.

Memory issues?

;D

Quick bit of research and don't fully discharge your batteries ever if you can avoid it, this will more likely damage the battery as the different cells that make up the battery will run out of energy at different times and the other cells will reverse charge them (don't know what it is, but it sounds bad :p).

Also, one that I knew about, don't overcharge your battery, this will create a voltage depression and it will appear to not be holding as much charge. This is why I take the battery out sometimes (should all the time!) when on mains power. As it is always being trickle charged (and thus possibly overcharged) when it is plugged in.

thanks folks, very interesting

this is also true for ipods - overcharging will kill your battery life

Is there not an automatic cutout to prevent overcharging?

I suppose there "should" be, but certainly in my case overcharging is a reasonable explanation of my woes with batteries as neither of them were used anything like 1000 cycles.

My battery has never been any good, it lasts about 10 minutes but i think this was because the charger was faulty when i got it (it never powered the lappy properly, just kept topping it up meaning the battery was in constant use).
I need a new one anyway cuz i dropped it and broke the screen, it sits on my coffee table with my old monitor plugged in!!!
The monitor has done well it used to be on my only ever desktop running '95, then '98 with a 3gig hard drive!!!
How did i cope?

None of them are perfect, there will always be some overcharging, and the more it's plugged in, the more there is. And cheaper charging circuits are worse.