Laptop battery runs out faster than usual?
I have a Lenovo laptop (Lenovo enhanced experience 2.0) with Windows 7. When I use the laptop while it is not charging (when I have no access to any form of charging), the battery seems to run out much faster than before. I checked my power plan and I am using the one that balances power and performance (to have the battery run out slower), the brightness is at minimum level, and my use of the laptop is mainly typing. I have nothing active other than Word (and sometimes the internet, which I am not using when I type on Word). My question is: what else can I do to save battery while using my laptop given the above?
If a laptop battery is 100% charged, should I run it on battery power or AC mains supply?
No, you need not to run it on AC mains supply unless you're planning to go somewhere after charging that you need to conserve battery.If you really aren't going somewhere else, then remove the charger and use your laptop on battery power. When it'll reach something like 8%-15%, then reconnect the charger and charge till it's 90&+.Overcharging: In general, many of us charge our phones, laptops and other electronics till they reach their 100%. This is actually not necessary. Anything like 90%+ is enough. When you charge your electronic beyond 100%, it'll get into overcharging state. Due to flow of electric currents in battery, the battery's health tends to get weaker and weaker the more number of time and duration you overcharge it. This seriously damages battery either it be normal or even the one with overcharging protection.Overcharging protection does help in protecting battery getting overcharged to some extent but your laziness will even destroy that layer of protection!Here are the few tips from my side to help you protect your battery:Never charge your battery to 100%. Even 99% is enough. As I mentioned earlier, anything between 90& to 99% is good.Charge your laptop only when the battery percentage decreases to 20%. I charge when I get a warning of 6% battery.Never put your laptop always charging. Let it take some rest. Even full drained battery is essential once a month.Always restart your laptop once a week. I didn't believed this until I tried myself. This helps in resetting RAM.Always use original charger for your laptop. Don't use any cheap charger to save few bucks. Don't charge if you don't want to buy original charger.Always use stabilized electricity for your laptop. High or unstable voltage tend to harm display and battery.If you have a Lenovo or Dell brand laptop, then enable the 'charge till' option in your laptop. In Lenovo, you can use 'Optimized Battery Health' in pre-installed power management software. Don't know about other brands. Maybe try installing some software if it really helps.Use Windows Power Options according to your need to save power. Let it put your Laptop on standby after some duration of laptop being unused.Hope this helps ^_^
Is it bad to constantly charge your laptop?
i have an hp pavillion dv4-1125nr, which has a 6 cell lithium ion battery. i always leave the charger in my laptop because the charge never really lasted long since i've gotten the computer and i'm too lazy to take it out when it says its done fully charging anyway. now i'm worried this maybe affecting my batteries life in the long run. do lithium ion batteries get overcharged? whenever i look at the charge status and its full, it says fully charged. but if the battery happens to actually need some more charging, it says "charging." so does that mean when its fully charged, it stops charging?
Will it damage my laptop if I remove the battery and unplug it from the power source?
It's actually best practice to keep the battery out when it's plugged in anyways, the battery gets worn out if it is constantly charging.You can run the laptop off the power adapter without the battery in, no problem. It would be best however to have it plugged in through a battery backup, aka UPS (uninterruptible Power supply), so that if there's a power outage, you don't just suddenly lose power. THAT really COULD damage the laptop.Note: I have seen a laptop once (a very cheaply made lower end Lenovo laptop to be exact) that did not have a CMOS battery on the Mobo, it just used the main Battery to keep time. They literally saved less than ¢80 per unit by doing that. For that particular laptop, if you take battery out, it will reset to 12am January 1st 2001 at every boot.
My laptop's battery drains even when it is in sleep mode. Is it a hardware problem or a software problem?
First of all make sure your laptop is actually in sleep mode.Many times what happens is that the hinge of the laptop has some problem in it which doesn't let the laptop to go into the sleep mode so you're laptop is running without you knowing since you closed the lid believing it is in sleep mode. One way to check it is the power LED usually given on the sides of laptops which starts to blink if your laptop is in sleep mode.If that's not the problem then try putting your computer into hibernate mode whenever you close the lid. That'll take like 5–10 secs more for you laptop to open once you open the lid but it I'll save your work and the battery. This the best option I think or else you'll have to spend money on your laptop for such a small issue which doesn't makes sense at all.
Help! My laptop's battery only lasts 3-40 mins!? Details inside.?
Laptop batteries don't last forever, yours is dying kinda soon, being only about 6 months old, but it sounds like it's dying anyway. Its totally fine to use a laptop without a battery installed. The battery is only there for portability, if you removed it, the laptop would be perfectly happy running off the AC power from the wall. Batteries tend to wear out and die faster when they're recharged constantly, or recharged from an almost-fully-charged state, which is what a laptop is basically doing when it's constantly running off AC power from the wall. Lithium-ion batteries used in modern laptops are supposed to be immune from this effect, but if your laptop is killing batteries prematurely, maybe you could try cycling them like the older batteries used to need. Try running the laptop off the batteries every so often, just to give them a full discharge-recharge cycle occasionally.
What are the effects of running your laptop without the battery plugged in while the laptop is connected to the charging cord?
About 20 years ago, there was an exchange student who had his laptop stolen. The police couldn’t help and he didn’t have insurance for a replacement. He was on a very limited income, working part-time to pay for school and couldn’t afford to buy a replacement. Without a computer, he was going to drop out and keep his job flipping burgers. I heard about his dilemma and thought of a possible solution.I looked around my junk pile of scrap equipment and pulled out the following:A 10″ monochrome monitor.A PS/2 keyboard and mouse.A 500MB HDD.A 486 processor laptop with 64MB SDRAM, a 3.5″ floppy drive, a busted screen and most of the keys missing. Oh yeah, and no battery.Windows 3.11 floppy disk install set.I took the AC adapter and hardwired it to the laptop. I cut off the busted LCD and removed the rest of the keys. I connected the monitor via the VGA port and plugged in the PS/2 keyboard and mouse. The HDD was run using an adapter connected externally to the IDE connector and I loaded Windows 3.11.It was without a doubt, the ugliest computer I’ve ever built.But it worked.The student now had a minimally functioning computer to complete his work and was able to graduate.The point I’m making is that a laptop is capable of working without a battery and just run off the AC.
Is it okay if my laptop is always plugged in so that my battery is charged 100%? Must I allow it to drain periodically by unplugging to increase battery life?
Before I mention what I do and what I’d recommend you to do, I’m gonna lay down some facts about the working of a laptop battery.Every laptop today uses a Li-ion battery. These batteries cannot be overcharged. As soon as your laptop reaches 100%, the laptop starts running directly on AC power if it is still plugged in.The problem with Li-ion batteries is that they self discharge. So if you keep your laptop plugged in, the battery will charge up to 100%, stop charging, self discharge to 99%, start charging, charge up to 100% and this cycle will repeat every couple hours.Newer laptops have ways to tackle this but in general, keeping your laptop at 100% at all times, is not good for your batteryIt is also not advisable to store your laptop at full charge. If you keep your laptop plugged in, chances are when you’re not using it i.e. it is shut down, it is at full charge as well. Fully charged batteries deteriorate faster than partially charged batteries even when not in use.You also don’t wanna let the battery drain out and store a battery at 0% charge. Stored batteries also keep losing energy, and if your battery has no charge, you’re risking harming it.So what should you do?Change the maximum percentage your laptop charges to around 55–60%. This eliminates all of the issues stated above. This is how I use my laptop and it stays plugged in 10–12 hours everyday. There is no need to completely discharge your battery.The only downside to this is that when you’re not plugged in, the laptop cannot accurately judge how much time your battery would last but I’m guessing that shouldn’t be a problem for the OP.
Which would be better if I'm using my laptop stay on plugged in and charging or I'm using on battery until it runs out and plugged in?
I’d say leave your battery in charge until 60–80% and then pull it out and let it gather dust on the shelf. Batteries in-charge and plugged in decay due to the high tension pressuring them. So having a battery 100% , and keeping the laptop plugged in, builds stress and your battery loses it’s max charge. (Later you will notice your battery lasts only 2 hours instead of 3.5 or so)But leaving the battery do all the work, and recharging constantly is not good either. Every Li-Ion battery has a set number of times it can charge and discharge in the cycle. Charging cycles wear out if you keep using the battery for prolongued periods of time.TL:DR - Stay plugged in with no battery. Keep the battery at 60–70%(Since this the charge that won’t pressure your battery with too much tension, but won’t lose charge either ) . Stock it on a shelf in a bubble-wrap bag, and only charge it to 100% when you actually take your laptop outside and you need all that battery power.