How should i charge the battery?

[naxster]

Hi guys some of you know that i'm going to buy a laptop soon, and i know that there is some tips to prolong the battery life, how should i do?

Because some of my friends remove the battery from the laptop and recharge it alone without the computer... is that even good?

And should i let the battery die all the time before i recharge it to 100%? and should i even charge it to 100% everytime?

Can i have my computer on while it charges? (does it affect the battery)?

 

[MrBig55]

Battery manufacturers told us: use it and charge it when you want to (or when you can do so). These Lithium ion batteries just have to be fully discharged (down to 5% at strict minimum) then fully charged once in a while to recalibrate the battery. They also told us that it is better for battery life doing so.

FALSE !!!!! Having a dying battery laptop, I can tell you that is not accurate at all!!! Let me explain:

I did what manufacturers told: discharge/charge when needed, then I calibrated the battery weekly. Over every discharge/charge cycle, I went into some softwares that can measure how much capacity the battery lost over time. It is losing mAH every cycles.... Leaving the battery always pluged-in the AC outlet it does not wear anymore and stays still to the point it is now. Currently the 4400mAH battery has about 900mAH left in capacity and I was discharging/charging it the right way, like the manufacturers told us.

To proove it, my brother and a cousin used the same softwares to measure battery wear (both in Linux and Windows just to be sure it is really accurate). With their brand new laptops, both being the exact same model (both with 4800mAH battery). My brother did as the manufacturer said to correctly charge/discharge, my cousin left it plugged in all the time for weeks.

Result? After each cycle, my brother laptop battery is wearing almost 1% every discharge/charge cycle, while my cousin's one has no wear at all. After two weeks of testing, my brother's battery has about 80% capacity left, while my cousin's is still at 99.7% capacity.

Conclusion? Manufacturers say crap and don't do anything they told us and your laptops battery will last way longer than they told us it would.

Oh well so you see, we tried charging 3 laptop batteries (one 4400mAH, and two 4800mAH batteries tested) and it's obvious that yours is going to wear only days after you start using it... Laptop batteries have about 2 years of useful life. Having seen my own laptop's battery dying at a constant pace, doing some calculation tells us my brother's laptop battery is dying rapidly, and it will be completely dead in 2-3 months!!?? What the!!??

Oh and never use your mate's battery charger if their power output is not EXACTLY the same. I've forgot mine a few times and used my bro's... WRONG!!! it killed my second 4400mAH batterie in days!!

N.B.: I did not use any other battery charger than mine before those few times I did try on that 2nd battery, so don't tell me I had damaged my first 4400mAH battery doing that!! I DIDN'T!!

A few months from now I bought a new 4400mAH battery (3rd one already) for my laptop and I left it plugged-in since I bought the battery. It is now at 98.5% capacity.

Make your own conclusions if you will but I will never unplug my laptop again, which totally negates the need for a laptop at all.

 

[naxster]

Battery manufacturers told us to use it and charge it when you want to (or when you can do so). These Lithium ion batteries just have to be fully discharged (down to 5% at strict minimum) then fulkly charged once in a while to recalibrate the battery. They also told us that it is better for battery life doing so.

BUT !!!!! Having a dying battery laptop, I can tell you that is not accurate at all!!! Let me explain:

I do what manufacturers told, discharge/charge when needed, then I calibrated the battery weekly. Over every discharge/charge cycle, I go into some softwares that can measure how much capacity the battery lost over time. It is losing mAH every cycles.... Leaving the battery always pluged-in the AC outlet it does not wear anymore and stays still to the point it is now. Currently the 4400mAH has about 900mAH left in capacity and I was discharging/charging the right way, like the manufacturers told us.

To proof it, my brother and a cousin used the same softwares to measure battery wear (both in Linux and Windows just to be sure it is really accurate). With their brand new laptops, both being the exact same model, my brother did as the manufacturer said to charge/discharge, my cousin left it plugged in all the time for weeks.

Result? After each cycle, my brother laptop battery is wearing almost 1% every discharge/charge cycle, while my cousin's one has no wear at all.

Conclusion? Manufacturers say crap and don't do anything they told us and your laptops battery will last way longer than they told us it would.

Oh well so you see, we tried charging 3 laptop batteries (one 4400mAH, and two 4800mAH batteries tested) and it's obvious that yours is going to wear only days after you start using it...

Thanks for the reply Mrbig55... but i've got one question on what you wrote "These Lithium ion batteries just have to be fully discharged (down to 5% at strict minimum) then fulkly charged once in a while to recalibrate the battery".
So i should recharge battery once a month or week to fully life?
otherwise is it fine to recharge it to just 80-90%?

 

[MrBig55]

No what I have concluded is that you should not unplug it at all, since when you do so then need to charge the battery you will obviously wear the battery. Oh well it is not pratical but if you don't need to unplug it, leave it plugged all the time. From my testing it is WAY BETTER!! ^^

EDIT: After testing the result appears clear: a laptop is useful only to protect against power outage!! :-D

 

[naxster]

So the battery going to be worse if i remove it from the computer and charge it?

But they said that its better to remove the battery and then charge it... are they wrong?

 

[robertito]

The old cadmium ion batteries had to be depleted before recharging to make them last long. That's where the myth that you should let the battery run out before recharging comes from. The New Lithium ion batteries are the opposite.

Ideally keep it hooked up to power as much as possible and try to avoid letting it ever get below 30%. This isn't always practical but the less time it spends at lo power the better.

As for removing the battery to charge, I've never heard of any benefit to that. If the manufacturer suggests it maybe do it for the first charge.