Silly laptop question!

andy_fozzy

andy_fozzy

SPAM Merchant
Messages
7,450
Name
Andy!
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi guys.
If I do go ahead and buy a laptop, I have a silly question to ask..... :nuts:

If I leave it plugged into the mains most of the time, as I'll mostly be using it at home, does this do the battery any harm?
IE, can/will it overcharge and damage the battery?

Cheers, sorry if it sounds too daft!!
 
...I would take the battery out if you are going to that.

You could always fully charge and it use it on battery until it runs out then charge it up again. Even makes it portable doing it this way :D
 
Depends who you speak to. I tend to take my battery out every now and then, just remember to put it back in before you turn the computer off.

Remember with laptops all the time the the charger is on you are charging the battery whether the computer is on or off.
 
Good idea, thanks matey.

Will charging and un-charging unnecessarily shorten the battery life?
It would be idea to leave it in and just use it until it dies, but don't want to shorten it's life.

Great tips, thanks again.
 
I leave mine on charge 90% of the time, the other 10% is when it's being used away from my desk :)
 
Forget everything else, the answer is as follows:

  • Do not remove the battery.
  • The battery will not overcharge unless the laptop is faulty.
  • Letting L-ion batteries run down HARMS them it does not help them.
  • L-ion powered laptops are designed to shut off when there is 5-10% power left in the battery as running one completely flat can permanently damage it - This is why you should never ever store them flat.
  • L-ion batteries loose power doing nothing which is why they are designed to power off at 5-10% so that they never actually reach zero.
  • L-ion batteries do not have a memory effect.
  • Taking it out and leaving it out will serious harm it's expected life span.

Just leave the battery attached and run it from the mains.
 
Thank you all for your advice.

(Especially cowasaki (y) )

Appreciate your help guys :clap:
 
Take Cowasaki's advice!!!

I didn't pay attention to it and I left my mac flat for long enough to kill my battery - as a result my power lead has to be plugged in whenever I want to use it :( Due to it being a mac - the lead is magnetic ... our cat is very fond of pulling it out :| therefore turning it off.

The moral being - always listen to cowasaki :D
 
andy_fozzy said:
Thank you all for your advice.

(Especially cowasaki (y) )

Appreciate your help guys :clap:
Click to expand...

Your welcome. I have done some research into L-ion batteries but lots of the old wives tails remain. Most of these relate to NiCad and Hi-Md batteries. L-ion batteries are closest in effect to lead acid batteries in cars!
 
cowasaki said:
Forget everything else, the answer is as follows:

  • Do not remove the battery.
  • The battery will not overcharge unless the laptop is faulty.
  • Letting L-ion batteries run down HARMS them it does not help them.
  • L-ion powered laptops are designed to shut off when there is 5-10% power left in the battery as running one completely flat can permanently damage it - This is why you should never ever store them flat.
  • L-ion batteries loose power doing nothing which is why they are designed to power off at 5-10% so that they never actually reach zero.
  • L-ion batteries do not have a memory effect.
  • Taking it out and leaving it out will serious harm it's expected life span.

Just leave the battery attached and run it from the mains.
Click to expand...



I was going to say the same thing but also say once the battery has reached full charge it will just stay in the same state untill the power supply is removed and then run on battery and this does absolutely no harm to the battery
 
Chlowasaki said:
Take Cowasaki's advice!!!

I didn't pay attention to it and I left my mac flat for long enough to kill my battery - as a result my power lead has to be plugged in whenever I want to use it :( Due to it being a mac - the lead is magnetic ... our cat is very fond of pulling it out :| therefore turning it off.

The moral being - always listen to cowasaki :D
Click to expand...

Crawler !
 
neil_g said:
sorry but leaving mine on mains 90% of the time destroyed the life in my last battery over the space of 6 months.
Click to expand...

It must have been faulty, overheated or left to go completely flat at some point. Seriously L-ion batteries are good for several years if treated as I have described. My Macbook pro for example is on 500+ cycles and gives me the same time as when it was new.
 
cowasaki said:
It must have been faulty, overheated or left to go completely flat at some point. Seriously L-ion batteries are good for several years if treated as I have described. My Macbook pro for example is on 500+ cycles and gives me the same time as when it was new.
Click to expand...

none of the above, it was the 2nd battery to do it. the life went from 3 hours to 30 mins over the space of 6 months on both.

personally id say if its on mains for more than a couple hours unplug it enough to get you to the low battery message then plug back in. i know l-ion are not supposed to have memory effects etc but its funny how i started unplugging the mains and my latest one is lasting.

likewise we go through batteries at work for laptops mainly on docking stations at a rate of knots.
 
neil_g said:
none of the above, it was the 2nd battery to do it. the life went from 3 hours to 30 mins over the space of 6 months on both.

personally id say if its on mains for more than a couple hours unplug it enough to get you to the low battery message then plug back in. i know l-ion are not supposed to have memory effects etc but its funny how i started unplugging the mains and my latest one is lasting.

likewise we go through batteries at work for laptops mainly on docking stations at a rate of knots.
Click to expand...

How strange :thinking:
 
neil_g said:
none of the above, it was the 2nd battery to do it. the life went from 3 hours to 30 mins over the space of 6 months on both.

personally id say if its on mains for more than a couple hours unplug it enough to get you to the low battery message then plug back in. i know l-ion are not supposed to have memory effects etc but its funny how i started unplugging the mains and my latest one is lasting.

likewise we go through batteries at work for laptops mainly on docking stations at a rate of knots.
Click to expand...

Sorry, we'll just have to disagree on that one.
 
might not damage the battery but it can do damage to the charger. Chargers are 30 to 60 pounds! They get very hot! I try to charge over night then use without the charger till battery light comes on. Then use with charger till batterys charged and then turn it off again this way it gives charger a bit of a brake. I was using a works laptop on all day run from charger but it started crackling after six months of using on constant.
 
...Personally I wouldn't go with cowasaki's advice but its up to you :)
 
A laptop is designed to have a battery fitted 100% of the time - it will sort it's self out - i have been involved in lots of large scale laptop deployments of 4000+ units and i have never advised a client to remove a battery or been advised by a manufacture to do it. I have been a laptop use for 15 years and i have never removed a battery while using mains power.
 
animalstorey said:
might not damage the battery but it can do damage to the charger. Chargers are 30 to 60 pounds! They get very hot! I try to charge over night then use without the charger till battery light comes on. Then use with charger till battery's charged and then turn it off again this way it gives charger a bit of a brake. I was using a works laptop on all day run from charger but it started crackling after six months of using on constant.
Click to expand...

Sorry m8 but the kit is desigend to be used - i have a docking station at home & at the office each one has a charger connected to it 24 *7 *365 and i have never had a problem (along with several thousand other laptop user's within the company)
 
cowasaki said:
It must have been faulty, overheated or left to go completely flat at some point. Seriously L-ion batteries are good for several years if treated as I have described. My Macbook pro for example is on 500+ cycles and gives me the same time as when it was new.
Click to expand...

Out of interest, on 500ish cycles, what's your battery's health % using iStat?

Mine's on 322 cycles and 91% health - is that pretty good, or just ok? I thought i looked after mine pretty well. :)
 
Dogfish_magnet said:
Sorry m8 but the kit is desigend to be used - i have a docking station at home & at the office each one has a charger connected to it 24 *7 *365 and i have never had a problem (along with several thousand other laptop user's within the company)
Click to expand...
For all I know it could have been an old lead or may be some other reason it became faulty. I'm just not keen on leaving my cable on 16 hours a day due to heat - the chargers get way too hot. It's a good idea to use a docking station though.

Seem most are saying just run it.

My work laptop battery wouldn't hold a charge for any more than thirty mins... I had put this down to being run by mains all the time. However I don't know if this was a battery problem or the charger problem. I just went out and bought my own in the end!
 
I use my laptop plugged in most of the time, 18 months old and the battery life is no worse than when it was new. My last laptop was the same.

The whole take the battery out thing I find weird. Why not just unplug the thing from the power adapter, when the battery is flat (i.e. you get the "you've got x minutes left" warning appears) plug it back in ?
I cycle the battery in mine every so often by doing this.
 
Leave it plugged in! Have worked in IT for over 7 years now, just leave it plugged in, the new MacBook Pros are now built so that you can't even take the battery out, so that should tell you something... Cowasaki's advice is sound! Just don't drop the thing and it will be fine and try not to let it run down to absolute zero, that will indeed harm the battery.
 
beardboy said:
Out of interest, on 500ish cycles, what's your battery's health % using iStat?

Mine's on 322 cycles and 91% health - is that pretty good, or just ok? I thought i looked after mine pretty well. :)
Click to expand...

My battery is on 524 cycles and iStat gives it a health figure of 93%.

istat.png
 
shufty said:
...Personally I wouldn't go with cowasaki's advice but its up to you :)
Click to expand...

If you remove the battery and the power drains you will permanently damage it - FACT. My advice is free and correct, a new battery is not. Do as you like :LOL:
 
c1187600 said:
Leave it plugged in! Have worked in IT for over 7 years now, just leave it plugged in, the new MacBook Pros are now built so that you can't even take the battery out, so that should tell you something... Cowasaki's advice is sound! Just don't drop the thing and it will be fine and try not to let it run down to absolute zero, that will indeed harm the battery.
Click to expand...

apple also have sealed exploding batteries in some of their kit.. :p
 
cowasaki said:
If you remove the battery and the power drains you will permanently damage it - FACT. My advice is free and correct, a new battery is not. Do as you like :LOL:
Click to expand...

for the record im not saying take the battery out or let it drain. im saying cycle having it on mains and unplugged equally.

oh and ive worked in IT support for the last 10-11 years. not sure why that matters but people seem to like adding that in.. :p
 
neil_g said:
oh and ive worked in IT support for the last 10-11 years. not sure why that matters but people seem to like adding that in.. :p
Click to expand...

No I don't know why they add that in but my qualifications go so far back that I can repair your BBC model B under warranty :LOL:
 
neil_g said:
ooooooooh retro :love:
Click to expand...

Yes, and none of your board swapping melarchy either! I'm talking locating faults, unsoldering chips and soldering new ones in :) Oh I miss the smell of solder in the morning :LOL:

I am intro retro computing, my computers include.....

BBC model B x 2, Spectrum 48K x 3, Spectrum 16K (sub 1000 serial!), Spectrum plus, Vic 20 x2, Commodore 64 x 3, commodore serial floppy drive, Amstrad CPC464 x 2, Amstrad CPC664 x 2, Amstrad CPC6128 x 4 (box of bits, floppys etc)............

Old computers are great
 
jeez thats a bit of a collection going on there..

i remember the BBC's well, they were great. (shift+break, release break release shift lol)

they got replaced by acorns in our schools if i remember rightly. my mates dad had one, they were dead posh. we used to play flight sims on it..
 
cowasaki is right.
The batteries today are different from those a decade ago.

Lithium-Ion batteries will shorten life if you leave them til a low percentage for recharging.
Keep your battery topped up at all times to avoid life shortening.

Older batteries like Nickel Cadmiums go with the older logic of recharging. Go with a full discharge before recharging.

Since all modern batteries are mostly Lithium Ions, follow cowasaki's advice.
 
neil_g said:
jeez thats a bit of a collection going on there..

i remember the BBC's well, they were great. (shift+break, release break release shift lol)

they got replaced by acorns in our schools if i remember rightly. my mates dad had one, they were dead posh. we used to play flight sims on it..
Click to expand...

BBC's are Acorns but you are probably referring to Acorn Archimedes and Acorn A3000/4000/5000 etc

I designed several upgrades for the Archimedes range. If your school had any A3000s with dual podule backplanes, IDE interfaces or memory upgrades from Orion Computers then thats me :)

Oh and your key sequence would boot the default file system :)
 
yes the A3000 if i remember rightly, youll have to excuse me that was the best part of 17 years ago? yikes...

shift break loaded the 5" floppy didnt it? youll have to excuse me that was the best part of 20 years ago? ARGH.

lol
 
neil_g said:
yes the A3000 if i remember rightly, youll have to excuse me that was the best part of 17 years ago? yikes...

shift break loaded the 5" floppy didnt it? youll have to excuse me that was the best part of 20 years ago? ARGH.

lol
Click to expand...

Don't forget that other quarter inch ! 5.25"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top