Korean Job Discussion Forums

[SuperHero]

I'm new to laptops and recently purchased a second hand laptop. I know that with many battery run products one is encouraged to regularly let the battery run out rather than doing a partial recharge. Is this the case with laptop batteries?

Basically I would like to keep my battery life as long as I can. Currently it's good for 2 hours under a reasonable load.

[mindmetoo]

They say the new Li batteries don't have this "memory" but I think that's crap. Some laptop manuals recommend not recharging until the batter falls below 50%. Batteries, I think, regardless of what % you start the charge, do have a limited number of times you can discharge/charge them, like 1000 times or something. So if you're going on battery and then plugging in your laptop twice a day, you'll probably wear out your battery in a year or so.

[mnhnhyouh]

[SuperHero]

[ulsanchris]

my apple suggest i should calibrate the battery for my macbook every two months. I notice that the method for doing that changes from notebook to notebook. Look up how to do it at the manufacturers website.

[ulsanchris]

I totally drain my batteries on anything that takes batteries and i seem to get good battery life. I always drain my batteries on my hand phone and their battery life is almost as good when i first bought it three years ago.
I do the same with my camcorder battery, it is a infolithium type, and what i have noticed is that if i haven't used it for a long time then its charge is not very strong. but once i drain it and charge it a few times in a row then the batteries charge improves to almost the original amount.

[jlb]

My suggestion: remove your laptop battery if you're just using it as a desktop.

[SuperHero]

[Gatsby]

I've seen a variety of views from "reputable" sources on lithium battery use. Do an internet search and you will probably find some of them.

The most important thing is to understand that the advice to deep discharge batteries applied to the old nickel cadmium batteries, and then you only needed to do it occasionally. It was called "memory effect." If you only did a shallow discharge every time on something like a cordless phone, you might notice the shorter time you could use the batteries.

One chart on lithium batteries I saw indicated the batteries lasted longer the less you discharged them each use.

What I do know is I got a digital camera with two lithium batteries. I ran the batteries down until the camera stopped working each time, and then changed the batteries. Both batteries lasted about a year, which is not good.

I got two replacement batteries. I now charge them every week or so, regardless of how much use they have had. They are holding up fine. I have heard that lithium batteries should have a life of about 300 charges or so. So if I charge them every week, that's six years life, or so. Sounds good to me.

But if your laptop is going from charge to light discharge every day, even when it is plugged in, I'm not sure that's so good.

I guess the life of the laptop battery is ultimately contingent on the battery charger circuit in the laptop. My guess is there is a trickle charge whenever the laptop is plugged in. Check your manual.

Now if you are a laptop maker, wouldn't you have an incentive to get customers to buy a new proprietary laptop battery at $150 every year or so?

So I just take the battery out when I don't need it. And it is holding up fine after six years.

On the other hand, I believe the instruction manual for the computer said something about doing a complete charge discharge cycle with the new battery. So I suggest you read your manual, and follow the advice.

[jlb]

[SuperHero]