Question Laptop battery care ?

[PaulDesmond]

I have always had a standard desktop PC as I didn’t want a laptop, I couldn’t use the mouse pad and the buttons are not as positive. My PC broke down and I got my first laptop (Asus A516 15.6in). With a PC you don’t unplug it at night. I have transferred my Monitor, keyboard and mouse and use the laptop like a PC.
As the laptop is permanently plugged in does this harm the battery ? (If you leave a mobile plugged in a lot you can damage the battery. Well that is what they say)

So can someone advise me on the battery usage of my new (first) laptop.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

Well the way I taught my son to do it should work for you too. Charge it up and then unplug it and use it until it needs charging and don’t leave it on the charger overnight or anything like that just charge it up and unplug it.

Let it discharge to about 30% and then charge it up to about 90% you don’t need to go to 100 But you can if you want to. And when the battery eventually dies get an OEM battery from the original manufacturer

Leaving it permanently plugged in will ruin the battery and probably the charging circuits on the motherboard like I did with my first HP laptop

 

[hotaru.hino]

Of all the rechargeable battery based devices I've used in the past 20 or so years, I've never ruined my batteries by not following the rule of "unplug it as soon as it reaches 100%" All of my smartphones since I had my first one in 2010 was always plugged in overnight. None of them had any issues with battery capacity issues or whatnot. Charging circuitry will cut off charging the battery when it reaches capacity. It then trickle charges it over time to keep it topped off. Unless something happens to this circuitry or the smarts driving it, the battery will not be in a condition where it catastrophically fails.

Also with regards to laptops, it becomes even less practical to follow the practice of "disconnect it from power when it's done charging". For one, laptop batteries aren't easily removable these days. For another, many higher powered laptops require the adapter to work to its fullest. My laptop under full load can consume about 100-120W of power. Its battery cannot safely discharge that much power. So what's the point in having a gaming laptop if I can't use it to its fullest because I have to disconnect it from mains power whenever the battery is charged?

Now there is a kernel of truth to avoid keeping rechargeable batteries at 100% all the time. Nickel based batteries would lose capacity much faster if you tried to keep it at 100% all the time due to the so-called memory effect. Lithium based batteries don't have this problem or it's so insignificant that the natural degradation is faster than the memory effect. However, if you plan on keeping a lithium battery in long-term storage, you're not supposed to keep it at 100%, but more at around 50%. And yes, there are now options in devices to not fully charge the battery, because not using the battery would probably count as being "in storage."

So don't worry about overcharging the thing or whatever. If there really was some sort of special care needed for the battery, the manual should've spelled this out very clearly.

If anything, the one thing you should never expose batteries to is high heat. That's what kills batteries faster.

 

[kerberos_20]

most laptops are configured to be in slow poke mode when runing on battery, while switching to performance mode when plugged in

you dont need to disconnect charger from laptop when battery is fully charged, laptop will use power source directly
it will charge battery only if its needed, you can disconnect battery from laptop and see for your self that laptop wont shutdown as it has power source attached
battery there works exactly same way as if you use UPS on a normal PC, power goes off, switching to battery mode

 

[hang-the-9]

Check the power options for the laptop, many have an option to select how to change the battery. I set mine for lifespan which I think is to charge at 20% and stop at 80%

 

[PaulDesmond]

I think kerberos_20 has hit the nail on the head. here. There are more electronic safe guards in a laptop than a mobile phone. A mobile phone is intended for use on a battery and charged where needed.

A laptop is smarter and will probably switch to mains use when available and charge the battery at the same time if needed. This will switch to battery automatically when the mains supplies goes.

I have a USP in case there is a power failure and the battery is not constantly charged and discharged when in use.

However what I am using now is ALEXA and smart plug sockets (I have smart light bulbs as well). The power is cut at 01:00 AM and it is up to me to say AELEXA LAPTOP POWER ON.

Thanks for all your help..

 

[raywood]

My Acer Aspire 5 A515 is always plugged into AC power. Two distinct disadvantages of Acer, compared to Lenovo: Acer doesn't seem to offer charge-limiting software, and the batteries are usually not removable. So the Acer's battery died in about two years. Meanwhile, the battery on my Lenovo ThinkPad E430 still works after ten years.