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  1. Member bballnut's Avatar
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    Mar 2003
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    I recently bought a laptop...my first one. I have only had desktops before. I will mainly be using this new laptop in my home office but went with the laptop to take on the road occationally. While using the laptop in my office,
    Would it be better to take battery out and plug in to power all the time? and use battery when on the road?
    Will this prolong the battery life?
    Do I need to run battery down the recharge on regular basis?
    Just wondering..... since I am new to the laptop scene.


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  2. Member edDV's Avatar
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    Modern laptop lithium batteries will not overcharge if left on the power supply. In theory they will wear with the number of recharge cycles but when used as you describe, the batteries will probably give up from old age (approx 4-5 years) even if left on the shelf.

    You should avoid fully discharging a lithium battery. There is no memory as found in NiCads.
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  3. A couple of perspectives:

    http://mobileoffice.about.com/od/usingyourlaptop/f/laptopbattery1.htm

    http://mobileoffice.about.com/od/usingyourlaptop/f/laptopbattery.htm

    Although I have no personal statistics to prove it, I feel like I've shortened the battery life of a couple laptops I've had by keeping them plugged in all the time with the batteries installed, so I remove the one for my netbook when I don't need portability.
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  4. Member bballnut's Avatar
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    Thanks, I will follow these instructions.
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  5. Member budwzr's Avatar
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    I bought a new Toshiba laptop a few months ago, and the manual says to NOT keep it plugged in all the time, and to fully discharge it once a month. Of course, that might be boilerplate from ten years ago, but it makes sense.

    I had an HP laptop previously, and plugged in all the time, and when I took it off charge one time it died immediately, although the charge indicator said "Fully Charged".
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  6. Member ricoman's Avatar
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    My laptop manual says not to let it charge for more than 8 hrs. or you can damage the battery. Of course it you are using it, that's okay, just don't leave it off and charging for more than 8 hrs.
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  7. Mod Neophyte Super Moderator redwudz's Avatar
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    My Asus laptop does a good job of monitoring the battery. A orange battery light was flashing last month, and since it's a refurb laptop, I guessed the battery was dead. I unplugged the charger by accident and the LT ran till the battery was dead. Plugged it back in, no more orange light. Apparently the battery does need to be discharged at times. That's what the orange light was telling me. That said, I keep my LTs plugged in all the time and the batteries die at about the same rate as batteries on the shelf.

    And there used to be some laptops out there that wouldn't run without the battery installed. Probably a crappy power supply that would put too much voltage into the LT without the battery load to buffer it.

    I would ask the question to the laptop manufacturer just to be on the safe side to keep from damaging either the LT or the battery.
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  8. Member bballnut's Avatar
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    Thanks. I'll check with them.
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