Charge laptop battery all the time or take it out?

[LeftyLefty]

I just got a new HP laptop and I have heard several opinions
about charging the battery. Some say leave it in and plugged in
all the time and others say take it out when it is fully
charged. I will be using the computer plugged in most of the
time. It works fine with the battery removed. It is the
lithium type battery.
Thanks

 

[gathermewool]

The charging logic won't let you over-charge your battery; however, leaving the battery in has a couple of negatives if you mainly use it as a desktop.

1. Heat will shorten the life of the battery.

2. From what I've read, Li-ion batteries like to be stored at 40% capacity, so sticking with 100% seems to also shorten the life of the battery.

As far as real-life, I've only started taking the battery out of my laptop on the one I currently own. I drain it to around 50% and pull it. While the past few seemed to lose capacity after half a year or more, this one seems to be only slightly degraded after a couple of years.

 

[Cutehumor]

I'm interested to find out the answer to the OP question. Laptop battery life is just as important as the laptop specs.

 

[StevieC]

I spend a lot of time on my laptop with it plugged in and what I do is just unplug it from the charger when the battery is full and use it to at least 25% remaining life and plug it back in. Sometimes I let it go completely down to 2-3% and other times only to 75%.

I just do this in-between what I'm doing on the computer so that it keeps the battery in a strong state.

Steve

 

[VK56VD]

Take the battery out when you are running it from the AC. It will extend battery life as every rechargeable battery has a certain amount of recharge cycles. Once you go through all of them, the battery becomes weaker and at some point no longer holds a charge at all.

Save weight, reduce heat of your new laptop and increase battery life, take it out!

Congrats on your purchase btw. Which laptop did you get? Specs?

 

[Trav]

My Alienware i7 920 SLI laptop has stability issues without the battery in place.
I was told by them to keep the battery in the unit at all times.
My old Fujitsu had the battery in 5 yrs with no ill effects,battery life was almost the same as when it was new.
The new Fujitsu 8420 i use for my office has boot issues sans battery.

 

[StevieC]

I have a Macbook Pro and the battery isn't a removable one like a standard PC laptop/notebook.

It is Lithium-Polymer though and from what I understand the best battery you can have.

It still lasts me 6 hours of web-surfing and using a utility that estimates the battery life left tells me I have 99% of the original battery life left and I have charged it a gazillion times already so I can't complain.

 

[beast3300]

If you don't plan on using the battery then store it in a drawer at 40%.

 

[Hermann]

The GF and I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 with the original 6 cell battery. Just used it on vacation and It lasts nearly as long as when new. Have had it plugged in most of its life. It is stored in the hibernate mode, and left plugged in 95% of the time.

This laptop is so old I cant remember exactly. At least 5 years I am sure of. With the screen at full brightness, wi-fi constantly on and surfing quite a lot at a brisk pace, it lasted about 1.5 hours last week on vacation sitting on the sofa. When new it would go just about 2 hours. Wish it had the battery life of the new ones.

 

[tmorris1]

I have read that it is best to use a lithium battery or they loose capacity. Even if it is plugged in mostly just unplug and run the battery for a while and let it charge back up.

 

[javacontour]

I think it depends on the laptop. Perhaps some are using the battery as a sort of voltage regulator, helping ensure the voltage seen by the system is consistent.

Think of it as a huge capacitor, filtering out voltage fluctuations from the line source.

I think you have to ask the laptop vendor what they recommend.

 

[LeftyLefty]

Thanks for the replys. The laptop is HP dv6,15.6 led with
Intel CoreI5,4GDDR3 ram. Has intel HD graphics and 500G HD.
It is probably more machine than I need but you never know,
Lefty

 

[javacontour]

Don't worry, more machine than you need turns into not enough in about 18 months

 

[JHZR2]

The biggest chance of failure is when the cathode is in a fully delithiated state (fully charged). Longest shelf life is when it is stored cool at 20-40% SOC.

My old IBM laptop could set the battery charge level to ensure longevity. Too bad other laptops dont let you do this. If you can, leave it in (to act as a power buffer) but charged to 40% only.

 

[SrDriver]

We leave the batteries in our 2 Laptops and Netbook. We travel a lot being retired now for 7 years but always try and plug them in when possible.

When home we leave the one we are using plugged in all the time but do use the battery about once a month some.

Unlike other batteries, these don't need discharging all the way down and have read that actually that is not a good idea.

 

[Vizzy]

It will shorten the life of the battery if you allow the unit to continually charge it to full and never let it discharge occasionally.

Another words let the battery do the work it is intended to do.