Balancing battery and power supply on laptop

[sakumar79]

Hi
I have a laptop which I use to carry work between office and home... Since I mostly use it at home and office and not while carrying it around, most often I am able to use a power supply to avoid battery getting drained...
However, recently a computer technician told me that if I dont use the battery at all and use power supply to work on the laptop all the time, the battery will drain and start losing its capacity... Is this true? If so, when I use battery, is there a particular level to which I should allow it to drain before connecting it to the power supply (to maximise battery life)?

Thanks in advance
Arun

[Yamaraj]

Your computer tech person is right to some extent. Li-ION batteries are prone
to failure at severely low discharge levels. Usually, it's better to set the charge
threshold to 60%-80% (min-max), if you're always near a power socket.
This will force the battery to start charging only when below 60% and stop
when at 80%. Remember, you should never let Li-ION batteries idle at very
low or very high charge levels. So, keeping a max of 80% charge level is
optimal for you, since you don't make use of the battery quite often.

You may want to take the battey out and store in a refridgerator at 40%
charge level, when not in use for a long time. But I advise otherwise.

Li-ION batteries also like small charge increments or decrements. Draining them
from 90% to like 15% is certainly not a good idea. This way, you also loose
charge cycles faster, thus resulting in low overall lifespan of the battery.

For more information on batteries: http://batteryuniversity.com/index.htm

HTH,
Yamaraj

[montsa007]

recharge the batteries only when the warning flashes i mean it should be 10-20% left
depends on pc to pc
in my dell i get it @ 14%

[Yamaraj]

Originally Posted by montsa007

recharge the batteries only when the warning flashes i mean it should be 10-20% left
depends on pc to pc
in my dell i get it @ 14%

That's hazardous for Li-ION batteries. Never let them discharge at warning
levels. I'm afraid to say that your charging practice is silently killing your battery.

BTW, can you tell me how old your Dell is and how many charge cycles has
the battery consumed yet?

My ThinkPad was purchased back in December, and only 6 cycles have been
consumed by the battery so far. I'm sure it'll last longer than expected.

[montsa007]

no i just recharged this way 1nce else am a 50 50 user 50% use 50% charge

[Akshay]

Very useful information yamaraj...

But I didnt understand what do u mean by "how many charge cycles has
the battery consumed yet?"