View Full Version : Laptop: battery vs power supply
Ashley_Price
5th April 2010, 18:11
Just a quickie: if you have a fully charged laptop battery, is it better to use that than keep the laptop plugged into the power supply? Is the battery's life likely to be lessened if you keep it on charge (i.e. by using the power supply all the time)?
Bit of offtopic, but if you are having problems with your battery, check this:
http://www.conanstevens.com/computer-hints-fixes-and-tips/computer-hints-fixes-and-tips/longer-life-for-your-old-laptop-battery.html
Ashley_Price
5th April 2010, 18:31
That article is rather old, the first tip talks about using a floppy disk. :eek::p
Atilla
5th April 2010, 18:46
All batteries run out juice/charging capacitiy, some more quicker than others.
Unfortunately it's a downside of using lappy's.
RedEvo
5th April 2010, 19:52
My Mac is supposed to last for 1000 power cycles before needing a replacement battery. Once fully charged it runs from the mains whilst plugged in so I assume is not degrading the battery.
Right now I'm running on battery although there's only six hours left so I'd better get typing!
:)
d
Hosted SharePoint
6th April 2010, 07:51
Like RedEvo said - I'm pretty sure laptops plugged into the mains bypass the battery, although the battery icon still appears as full charged. I know from personal experience this hasn't degraded batteries
Kev Jaques
6th April 2010, 08:10
I often view laptop batteries as potential time bombs lol. There was some issues with a well known brand a year or so back where batteries exploded, nice! ;)
Logic would dictate if you have mains available, use it, if not then use the battery ;)
Leomas
6th April 2010, 10:30
Unfortunately although it would be nice if the charge circuit ignored a fully charged battery it doesn't quite work that way. It is continually monitoring the battery level and never drops the charge level to zero.
Even the latest batteries need to be used regularly down to wherever your low level alarm is set to ensure they have a 'deep discharge' cycle which improves the life of the battery. As with all these things the person giving the advice is always the last to take it and I am typing this on a laptop with a 2 year old battery which will now not charge beyond 41% of potential as I never used it off the mains in it's early days.
Atilla
6th April 2010, 10:32
Like RedEvo said - I'm pretty sure laptops plugged into the mains bypass the battery, although the battery icon still appears as full charged. I know from personal experience this hasn't degraded batteries
And on everyone i've had the battery 'life' diminishes even though i use them 95%+ plugged in. - Type/technology of battery has made little difference.