Laptop batteries - leave it plugged in or not?

Sac Arrow

Touchdown! Greaser!
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What's best for a laptop battery, when you use the laptop in one place; leave it plugged in, or unplug it when it's charged and allow it to discharge? Leave it plugged in overnight? Or not?
 
I plug in. But then I've been plugged for a long time. That's how I roll.
 
If I have a charger nearby I'll typically leave it plugged in, otherwise I just run it off battery power. I don't think it makes much of a difference either way though to be honest.
 
It used to be that we were encouraged to cycle the battery. I don't think that is currently a thing.
 
It used to be that we were encouraged to cycle the battery. I don't think that is currently a thing.

From life hacker website:

"Smartphones today have lithium-ion batteries, which don’t suffer from the memory problems of older nickel cadmium and nickel-metal hydride batteries. Similarly, lithium-ion batteries count charges differently than older batteries, so you don’t need to worry about discharging it completely."

-Skip
 
Well, I guess I should rephrase my question. Is there a downside, other than possible increased energy use, of leaving it plugged in continuously?
 
Hi.
Well, I guess I should rephrase my question. Is there a downside, other than possible increased energy use, of leaving it plugged in continuously?
The short answer is No.
If the battery is older than about 4 years, or so, and it's the type the nicad (NiCd) or some other older construction type they wanted to be cycled / discharged fully before you recharge it, to retain the full charge. It is not likely that you have that type, you should be fine to keep it plugged in / charged at all times. If you touch it while it charges, and it feels real hot I would remove it, some of these new devices are not very good at monitoring overcharge.
 
Hi.

The short answer is No.
If the battery is older than about 4 years, or so, and it's the type the nicad (NiCd) or some other older construction type they wanted to be cycled / discharged fully before you recharge it, to retain the full charge. It is not likely that you have that type, you should be fine to keep it plugged in / charged at all times. If you touch it while it charges, and it feels real hot I would remove it, some of these new devices are not very good at monitoring overcharge.

Right, that's what I was thinking. I'm sure it has a lithium ion battery. Those things tend to work great or explode (kind of like a couple of my exes) hence my question.
 
From life hacker website:

"Smartphones today have lithium-ion batteries, which don’t suffer from the memory problems of older nickel cadmium and nickel-metal hydride batteries. Similarly, lithium-ion batteries count charges differently than older batteries, so you don’t need to worry about discharging it completely."

-Skip

Yes, but charge cycles do take their toll on Li-ion batteries. There's no "memory" effect, but every time the battery is charged it does shorten its life a bit.

Rich
 
Well, I guess I should rephrase my question. Is there a downside, other than possible increased energy use, of leaving it plugged in continuously?

Yes, Lithium Ion batteries don't like staying charged at 100% for sure - you'll end up with a large capacity loss very quickly. If the laptop was capable of keeping it at 50% that would be great, but you generally don't have that option.

The best way for a Lithium battery to survive for years is to keep it charged between 40% and 80%. But it's so ridiculously difficult to do that, that I'm not sure it's worth the bother. I've had multiple laptops that I put it on a charger the day I bought it and removed it 3 years later for the first time and the battery life was non-existent after. But it would have also been ruined if I just took the battery out and put it aside. You're screwed either way.
 
Yes, Lithium Ion batteries don't like staying charged at 100% for sure - you'll end up with a large capacity loss very quickly. If the laptop was capable of keeping it at 50% that would be great, but you generally don't have that option.

The best way for a Lithium battery to survive for years is to keep it charged between 40% and 80%. But it's so ridiculously difficult to do that, that I'm not sure it's worth the bother. I've had multiple laptops that I put it on a charger the day I bought it and removed it 3 years later for the first time and the battery life was non-existent after. But it would have also been ruined if I just took the battery out and put it aside. You're screwed either way.

I recently re-purposed an old Acer ONE notebook as an alarm clock with news, weather, and emergency alerts. The battery was so dead that the device wasn't even aware that it was installed.

This device came with Windows XP and has since run many operating systems and performed many duties. Its most recent one was as a video server running CentOS and various server and video software, which was kind of impressive for such a small machine. But I digress. In all of those assignments it was plugged in all the time, so it's really no surprise that the battery was dead as a coffin nail when I resurrected the machine for its current assignment.

Fortunately, good batteries of higher capacity than the original one and with superb reviews were available for ~$18.00 on Amazon. Apparently a lot of Acer ONE's are still chugging along.

Rich
 
These Arkansas boys say plugged in and wired.

 
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