The Correct Way To Use A Laptop Battery With Ac Power Plugged In.

[Ahsaniqbalkmc 0]

I have started to feel that my battery is reducing the backup time with each passing week. My laptop is about a year and half old and I think it is quite natural for my battery to start wearing at this point of time but just for my knowledge, I would like to know that what is the better way of using a laptop with AC power. I mean to say that What should I do when the battery is fully charged and I am still using the AC power.

THe possible options would be:

I should remove the battery from the laptop and continue working on AC power

I shold remove the AC power (even if it is available) and start using the laptop on my battery until recharge is needed.

I should leave the battery in and also keep the AC power plugged in and keep using my laptop this way.

Let me discuss each of theshe options separately:

 

The first option ("Removing the battery") is not really a valid option for me because the electricity is not reliable here and you won't know when the power fails. So in this case if remvoe the battery and a power failure occurs, I will lose all my unsaved data and there is likelihood of damaging my hard drive and other computer components.

 

The second option ("I should remove the AC power") is quite valid for me but I don't like it. The reason is that sometimes you won't get the AC power for many hours at a time and if you have already removed the AC power the charge left on you battery is 50% and then a power failure occurs (which do occur all the time), then I won't have much battery backup left to work with and I would be left without any charge after and hour or so.

 

The third option ("keep both battery and AC plugged in") is what I normally do. I have tried to research about using this method and I have become more confused than I was before. There are sites which would tell you that it is a good method and you won't damage your battery even if you keep it plugged in after it has charged completely, but you just have to make sure that the batter doesn't get heated up too much. Other sites would tell you that keeping the battery plugged in (while on AC power) after it has charged completely would damage your battery and you should either remove the battery or remove the AC power. It is very confusing and I am unable to find any authentic information on this subject.

 

SO anyone, please share your views on this and tell me which method you use when you are working with your laptop. For those who might want to help, The laptop I use is HP DV6 3040us and the battery is Li-ion battery.

[manuleka 0]

with you're Electricity Service being so unpredictable, it's best to leave battery on while using Laptop plugged to the wall... and you're laptop should have an auto-shut on charging once battery is full (like most laptops now a days) and most HP/Dell/Acer etc. laptops come with good power management tools which will look after battery and it's charging facilities

[mahesh2k 0]

I too have electricity issue here. I have managed to figure out the pattern at which they turn off the grid. So I always keep the power on before they turn it off. That way I can have some backup during the power out time.There is no fixed solution for this it seems. I am going to ask the same question in toms hardware or any other hardware forum. Most of the answers are too generic because people who give answers are more likely to be in area where there is hardly 1 or 2 power outage in month.One more thing is that some batteries from manufacturers like HP and Acer do have issues. No matter how you try to manage the laptops, they're going to have issues with the battery. So my suggestion is that - turn off the power after every 2 hours for say 20 minutes and plug it on. That way battery will keep on functioning.This is the way I am doing things. I don't know if it will work for you because I have no idea about the brand of battery and the quality and warranty period of it. Most of the time, 2 year is the maximum any laptop battery can function normally, then it starts to show some issues. This is my observation for HP laptop battery, may not apply to dell or any other brand.

[yordan 10]

Also, a lot of batteries have to be changed after one or two years, no matter how you use them!

[manuleka 0]

usually batteries come with a standard 1 year warranty... which is the usual guaranteed proper-functional life span of laptop batteries.

[Ahsaniqbalkmc 0]

with you're Electricity Service being so unpredictable, it's best to leave battery on while using Laptop plugged to the wall... and you're laptop should have an auto-shut on charging once battery is full (like most laptops now a days) and most HP/Dell/Acer etc. laptops come with good power management tools which will look after battery and it's charging facilities

I think you got it absolutely right @manuleka because this is the logic inside my mind as well. I mean it is better to damage a battery (within limits) than damage your work. If I keep on doing my work, I can buy many batteries but if I prefer the safety of my battery over continuation of my work, I am afraid I won't be able to buy any new battery. But what if I can save both of them, and that is why I started this topic. You mentioned that my laptop should have some auto-shut function of charging the battery once it is full. Well, how would I know whether this exists or not. My laptop is Hp Pavilion DV6 3040us. I guess, this isn't that old model so more likely the laptop would have that function you mentioned but there must be some way of knowing it for sure. You said that laptops come with good power management tools. What exactly are you pointing to? Are you pointing to the tools provided by microsoft windows? If yes then I am afraid they don't have any function to allow the user to stop charging the battery once it is full, but maybe that function is automatic. Please talk more on this @manuleka.

I too have electricity issue here. I have managed to figure out the pattern at which they turn off the grid. So I always keep the power on before they turn it off. That way I can have some backup during the power out time.
There is no fixed solution for this it seems. I am going to ask the same question in toms hardware or any other hardware forum. Most of the answers are too generic because people who give answers are more likely to be in area where there is hardly 1 or 2 power outage in month.

One more thing is that some batteries from manufacturers like HP and Acer do have issues. No matter how you try to manage the laptops, they're going to have issues with the battery. So my suggestion is that - turn off the power after every 2 hours for say 20 minutes and plug it on. That way battery will keep on functioning.

This is the way I am doing things. I don't know if it will work for you because I have no idea about the brand of battery and the quality and warranty period of it. Most of the time, 2 year is the maximum any laptop battery can function normally, then it starts to show some issues. This is my observation for HP laptop battery, may not apply to dell or any other brand.

From your discussion, the nature of the power failures you have to face seem different than what I am facing. Here nothing is regular. I mean there is no proper schedule (because the primary issue is not the management of grid stations but load shedding). So sometimes there will be no shutting down of electricity for a week but other times you might get electriciy just for 8 hours a day. Plus the timing is also not so much obvious. I mean if today the electicity goes out on 2:00 pm, you cannot say for sure that it would go out on the same time tomorrow. So management, as you mentioned, is not quite practical in my case and I have to be prepared any time.

You are right that people in the western countries especially the US will never understand this problem because they don't have to face it. And their answers and never going to be satisfactory as they won't have any practicality in them.

You said that some batteries from certain manufacturers might have generic issues. What kind of issues are you talking about. Do you mean that they have inherited property of short life span. If this is the case then I think I should start paying more attention to my battery's behaviour. Plus, what is the logic behind turning off the power for about 20 minutes after every two hours of usage. What would this do? If cooling down the temperature of the battery is what you want to achieve, then I think there are other better ways of doing it which won't require you to rest your laptop after every two hours of use. One good way is a cooling pad with a separate fan for the battery.

Plus, it is not very likely that I can adopt the solution. I am quite a bit lazy and I don't like turning my laptop on and off again and again. Often my laptop goes on running for a week before I shut down it, or hibernate it etc. It keeps running all the time. About 12 hours, I am sitting in front of it doing something and the rest of the 12 hours, there is some downloading going on for which I keep it turned on.

Also, a lot of batteries have to be changed after one or two years, no matter how you use them!

If this is the case the I think we should just stop worrying about batteries. But again, some people would always want to find a way to extend the life of their batteries irrespective of the whether they would be successful or not.

[mahesh2k 0]

Th reason using cooler pads and the dust wiping is not going to help is because the system is getting hot because of the battery. So only way to stop being heated is to stop it from getting any supply. That's all we can do. I made tentative calculation related to the battery shutoff time which may not apply to you. It worked for me due to the predictable load shedding.Another good point is that considering the lifespan of 1 year, laptops are more expensive compared to desktop. I mean 1 year battery can fail after or just two days before warranty. Buying new battery is also not something one can do randomly.I mean one has to be financially prepared for it. I had lot of issues with this HP laptops and batteries and so i am skipping this brand totally. I don't know what else can we do about battery life and power failure. I am going to ask this in local forums and groups to get idea of how things work here.

[yordan 10]

I am skipping this brand totally. I don't know what else can we do about battery life and power failure

On my Dell laptops the battery charger is constantly connected, and I have no temperature nor battery ageing problems.

[mahesh2k 0]

By the way yordan, How true is this concept of system heating due to graphic cards? I heard that machines with Nvidia graphic cards dissipate more heat compared to intel graphics cards. Is that true? or is it just assumption from people who look nvidia card on intel board as mismatch?I don't know if there are any good AMD processor based laptops with no battery problem. So far never tried them and no idea of it at all.As for Dell, head that there are some people using XPS and having heat issues. I don't know if the problem exists for vostro and inspiron. But it seems there is issue with XPS which has high configuration and in turn high dissipation rates. I hope to know more about this.

[yordan 10]

How true is this concept of system heating due to graphic cards? I heard that machines with Nvidia graphic cards dissipate more heat compared to intel graphics cards. Is that true?

Just look on desktop systems, where you can open the box while the PC is running.Just think about the fact that some graphic boards have standard radiators, and some other graphic cards need to have their own fan for extracting heat...
I simply think that, the most a device works, most thermal dissipation it has. Your PC experiences heating while you are using it, for cpu-intensive things like compressions, or while playing display-intensive games.

[mahesh2k 0]

I get that dissipation of heat in general. My question was related to Nividia. I heard that laptops with nvidia card shows more heat compared to any laptop without it. There are hardly any laptops sold these days without the nvidia driver but still, It's hard to see that there seems to be the observation.I have seen toshiba which is not using nvidia card and have less heat issue.I will see what others have observation on this.

[Ahsaniqbalkmc 0]

Th reason using cooler pads and the dust wiping is not going to help is because the system is getting hot because of the battery. So only way to stop being heated is to stop it from getting any supply.

I am afraid, I have to disagree. I don't know about your scenarie but in my case, it is not the battery that is making the system hot. In fact I haven't seen a laptop where battery is the primary source of heat. It is the processor (and the GPU) that generates heat. In my case, the vent for the fan which cools the processor is damn near the battery and when I do intensive work on my lappy, the thing throws out very hot air and as a result, the battery also gets hot. Fortunately, the colling pad I am using has an adjustable fan. So what I have done is that I have set it in a place so that the battery is the primary target of its cooling. And believe me it does make a differnce. How can I tell???. Well just by touching the battery when the fan is on and when it is off. THere is a huge difference in the temperature.

Another good point is that considering the lifespan of 1 year, laptops are more expensive compared to desktop. I mean 1 year battery can fail after or just two days before warranty. Buying new battery is also not something one can do randomly.

I think one year is a bit too less for a laptop battery to work properly. And yes they are expensive so its not pocket-friendly to buy them randomly in short periods.
I hope manufacturers make better batteries than can last longer.

I don't know what else can we do about battery life and power failure. I am going to ask this in local forums and groups to get idea of how things work here.

I have heard people talk about a lot of things like when your laptop is turned off, eject the battery and store it separately, OR, make sure that you don't turn off your computer (at night) when the battery is still above 90 % charged. I personally think this stuff is just rubbish. Taking so much care isn't going to make much difference if at all.

On my Dell laptops the battery charger is constantly connected, and I have no temperature nor battery ageing problems.

And how old is your Dell laptop or it's battery?

By the way yordan, How true is this concept of system heating due to graphic cards? I heard that machines with Nvidia graphic cards dissipate more heat compared to intel graphics cards. Is that true? or is it just assumption from people who look nvidia card on intel board as mismatch?

I do believe in the fact that dedicated grpahics does produce extra heat. The reason is that when you go for high quality gaming laptops, you would find that some of them have two fans. One for the CPU and One for the graphics chip. THis clearly states that the GPU does produce its own heat that is in addition to the heat produced by the CPU.
But I don't beleive in Nvidia and intel being a mismatch. Yes, there were a few laptop series from dell and hp (I don't know about others) where the Nvidia chips literally burnt to death with extensive usage. The dell was lattitude D630 and the Hp was DV something. THat was quite a famous case and I think nvidia had issued some official apology or something for those chips. But other than that, I don't think there is any differnce in heat produced by nvidia and Ati chips. And for that matter, they both perform almost the same with intel processors. But again, this is my personal opinion and might be far from reality.

I don't know if there are any good AMD processor based laptops with no battery problem. So far never tried them and no idea of it at all.

My current laptop has AMD processor. And as a matter of fact, it does prduce a lot of heat. Much more than its intel couterpart. But I have experienced that it can tolerate higher temperatures as well so there is no performance drop at higher temperatures. THe worst thing with production of more heat is that even though the processor itself might tolerate it, but other components might not be so heat resistive. For instance, batteries are fairly vulnerable in this regard and they do get damaged by extra heating. And this phenomenon is more pronounced in AMD based systems.

I get that dissipation of heat in general. My question was related to Nividia. I heard that laptops with nvidia card shows more heat compared to any laptop without it. There are hardly any laptops sold these days without the nvidia driver but still, It's hard to see that there seems to be the observation.

Well if you are comparing a dedicated graphics chip with integrated CPU graphics, then I think it should be quite obvious that dedicated chip does produce its own heat. And so the total heat produced by a laptop with dedicated graphics will definitely be more than a similar laptop with integrated graphics. However, if you compare two laptops both with dedicated graphics, one with nvidia and other with ati, i think you would hardly notice any difference in the amount of heat produce by the two.

[Quatrux 4]

to add my two cents, I've read that it's best to charge your battery at 40-80% and it's live span will be much longer, due to the cells and physics, also its very bad for the battery to be out of charge for some time an it's also not recommended to always have it on 98-100% charged, you need to use it, especially when it's new.I was searching for software which would stop charging the battery when it's charged for example only 80%, but couldn't find anything for my Samsung laptop.I have it for 3-4 years now and when it was new, I could use my laptop for 4 hours on batter, now usually I can only for ma 2 hours, which in my opinion in such a period of time is quite good. My wifes laptop MSI, which she has for 3 years, battery used to hold for 6 and more hours, as it's a smaller laptop, now it only holds for 20 minutes so she constantly needs it to be wired.I also don't take the battery out from my laptop, due to electricity problems as once in a month or twice it can suddenly disappear when you least expect it to? Besides the battery is there to be used and usually after 3-5 years of using it, you need to buy a new computer, because it got quite old.

Edited March 26, 2012 by Quatrux (see edit history)

[iGuest 3]

Another 2 cents. I am Cuban and I really understand your point on power outages.Try to find a UPS. Even the old ones which have stopped to function on desktops, many still works on laptops as laptops use much less power. Besides UPS batteries are normally cheap than laptop ones, which is the main cause of UPS failure (I have opened the VRLA batteries seal to add distilled water, but I do not suggest anyone to do so, unless you really know what you are doing). By the way VRLA batteries have a much longer life span than Li-Ion ones.Charge Li-Ion batteries to 80% and take it off the laptop, keep them cool (optimally from 15º C to 20º C) as long as you can. Recharge Li-Ion the less the better. Then you will have the longest possible battery life span and are protected from power outages by your UPS. If you need to move on or the power outage takes longer than UPS power do, still you have your batteries ready. Modern UPS are "smart" enough to be connected via USB and hibernate your computer when they are approaching end of charge. Anyway when running on battery power, else laptop's or UPS, I advise to make frequent saves of your work, which is always faster than have to redo your work. You may find some easy to understand battery info at http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ Kilowatt

[yordan 10]

That's a curious opinion. In order to save the laptop battery, you suggest buying an UPS ? It's not the cheapest way to to solve this problem, is it?Moreover, one of the most comfortable feature in laptops is the fact that they don't need any UPS because they have an embedded battery, so removing the battery and connecting an external UPS doesn't look the smartest way in my opinion. Except if you are the UPS reseller?