Leaving a laptop plugged in ruins the battery when fully charged?

volstead

Reputable
Jul 4, 2019
61
8
4,535
I sometimes hear these urban myths about pc's, such as recent one that leaving a charged laptop plugged in will ruin the battery. Is this true?

Thank you.
 
Leaving a lithium battery at full charge can reduce its life. Full charge is a high stress state for the battery chemistry from what I’ve read. I’ve had a couple of laptops that have an option to stop charging at a lower % for users who mainly use the laptop plugged in. My current Dell G5 has this option but I have manually set it to 80% cutoff.
 
I sometimes hear these urban myths about pc's, such as recent one that leaving a charged laptop plugged in will ruin the battery. Is this true?

Thank you.

I would not call that a "recent" thing, it's been this fact pretty much since batteries were invented. Modern laptops have electronics that talk to the battery to keep the battery life extended and you can set manual settings also to help.
 

volstead

Reputable
Jul 4, 2019
61
8
4,535
Leaving a lithium battery at full charge can reduce its life. Full charge is a high stress state for the battery chemistry from what I’ve read. I’ve had a couple of laptops that have an option to stop charging at a lower % for users who mainly use the laptop plugged in. My current Dell G5 has this option but I have manually set it to 80% cutof
I would not call that a "recent" thing, it's been this fact pretty much since batteries were invented. Modern laptops have electronics that talk to the battery to keep the battery life extended and you can set manual settings also to help.
How do you set a battery to cutoff?
 

cadder

Distinguished
Nov 17, 2008
1,711
1
19,865
I sometimes hear these urban myths about pc's, such as recent one that leaving a charged laptop plugged in will ruin the battery. Is this true?
It is possible for a machine to have the charger plugged in all the time and this not damage the battery. I don't know if this applies to all brands and models. I am currently using my old Dell Latitude E6500 that is 12 years old. It has its original battery and that battery still has about half of its capacity left. I use the machine every day, though not for the entire day, almost always plugged in.