Worried between power management and battery life.

[Guest]

I'm struggling on what to choose between these:

My laptop is an old one and the Power management (which makes the battery stops charging at 50% or 80%) will be is supported only in Windows 7. But Win 7 is getting old and I really like win 8.1 (which doesn't support power management feature)

Now which will be better for the battery health, as battery health is my first concern.

1) Win 7 with Power management
2) Win 8.1 without power management.

NOTE: I use my laptop for 5-6 hrs/day continuously only in weekends. This includes gaming, browsing, movies only.

Please advise.

Thanks in advance.

 

[grana92]

Stay on Windows 7 or upgrade to windows 10. Skip Win 8

 

[jaguarskx]

What you could do is buy a laptop that has a removable battery. Charge it to whatever level you want, then remove it. When you want to take it outside your home, then snap in the battery and allow it to charge up to 100%. It can be a bit of a pain if you use the laptop a lot outside of your home.

Power Management on exists for Windows 7, but not all laptop brand names offers that feature. It is a custom program, not a feature within Windows 7. To the best of my knowledge, Dell and Lenovo laptops included a custom program (compatible only with Win 7) that will allow you to set the maximum charge level.

 

[Guest]

What you could do is buy a laptop that has a removable battery. Charge it to whatever level you want, then remove it. When you want to take it outside your home, then snap in the battery and allow it to charge up to 100%. It can be a bit of a pain if you use the laptop a lot outside of your home.

Power Management on exists for Windows 7, but not all laptop brand names offers that feature. It is a custom program, not a feature within Windows 7. To the best of my knowledge, Dell and Lenovo laptops included a custom program (compatible only with Win 7) that will allow you to set the maximum charge level.

Yeah, I know this and I don't use laptops outside.

And yes, My SONY VAIO supports Power management (the custom program) only in Win 7.

 

[Guest]

What you could do is buy a laptop that has a removable battery. Charge it to whatever level you want, then remove it. When you want to take it outside your home, then snap in the battery and allow it to charge up to 100%. It can be a bit of a pain if you use the laptop a lot outside of your home.

Power Management on exists for Windows 7, but not all laptop brand names offers that feature. It is a custom program, not a feature within Windows 7. To the best of my knowledge, Dell and Lenovo laptops included a custom program (compatible only with Win 7) that will allow you to set the maximum charge level.

So, keeping the battery charge levels at 100% all the time is ok? Because, i'm going for windows 8.1.

P.S. I can't use the laptop without battery, because the place I live in has power problems.

 

[jaguarskx]

Well generally no, it is not a good idea to have the battery charged at 100% all the time, but if you are have to keep the battery in the laptop due to power outages then you don't really have a choice if you want to use a newer Windows OS.

Empirical evidence has shown that lithium ion batteries degrade when they are constantly near or at maximum battery charge. The lithium ions have a higher chance of joining together and forming "lithium plates". When this happens those ions can no longer hold a charge so battery life decreases; the more lithium plates forms the lower the maximum capacity will decrease.

I have read, but there is no evidence, that newer laptops have batteries that have higher capacity than actually advertised to get around the problem of lithium plates. For example, a laptop can be advertised as having a 40WHr battery, but in actuality the battery is 45WHr, but it will only charge up to 40WHr.

 

[Guest]

Thanks,