Comments on: What’s greener, running laptop batteries to empty or constantly charging them?

By: krisanta_081

krisanta_081 — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 05:29:26 +0000

It is better to make sure the battery is emptied before recharging it. Or better yet have an extra battery, so everytime you’re on travel you have 2 batteries when you are on the go.

By: Laid back

Laid back — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:34:43 +0000

OK, Li-Ions can normally be charged about 300 times before they start going bad. As far as the amount of power used, if you run the battery down and then charge it, then run it down again, repeatedly, you are using more power to charge and operate the system. If you leave it plugged in all the time, again you can shorten the life by constantly overcharging. I do not know of a system that truly cutts off the charge when full. They all still have a small trickle to the batteries. Long enough and it will start degrading cells. It is best to charge the battery, and remove it if you want to run off line power most of the time. Li-Ion will lose power in storage due to temp changes and normal electon bridging. You should install and run it down then fully charge about every two months, then take out again. That probably is the best for saving the endurance of the battery and being green. Remember when you have to change it because of failure there is an impact on the green footprint.

By: bestonnet_00

bestonnet_00 — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:45:46 +0000

The battery can only survive a limited number of a cycles so the best way to treat a Li-Ion battery is to not discharge it all the time (though if you do need to use your laptop for the full life of the battery don’t worry about doing so, it’s discharging the battery every day that’ll kill it, not every couple of months) so you should just leave it plugged into the wall when you aren’t needing to use it as a portable computer (if you are constantly charging and discharging the battery it won’t be long before the battery is dead but if you don’t abuse the battery like that then it should be good for a few years).

Don’t worry about saving electricity when you’re plugged into the wall, it’s cheap enough not to matter and laptops use less power than desktops anyway (in terms of global warming saving power is a bad way to solve the problem because it can’t solve the problem, only delay it).

Also be careful about storing the battery for long periods of time with low charge, a battery will self-discharge over time and if the charge in a Li-Ion battery gets low enough the protection circuit will burn out parts of the battery preventing it from working (if it didn’t then the battery might pose a safety hazard) so if you need to store the battery for a long time get it to about 40% then put it in the fridge (to slow aging).

Oh and ignore the idiots who tell you that discharging the battery will help it (it won’t), the aging of Li-Ion batteries is not affected by discharges (the only thing a discharge will do is measure the battery capacity accurately and then store it on the battery so the computer can accurately determine how much charge it has, it won’t increase run time unless there’s something wrong).

By: Joseph, II

Joseph, II — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 01:53:50 +0000

Batteries are designed to be Used…so if you DON’T, they’re being wasted. So I’d say you should run your Laptop til it dies. I mean isn’t that half the Point of having a Laptop to begin with??

By: Bert E

Bert E — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 02:19:36 +0000

If you don’t take the laptop anywhere really i would remove the battery and store it somewhere safe until needed. If you do take it places off and on then you can keep the battery in and plugged in most of the time. If your battery life starts to die then charge it fully and let it die completely 3 times…that often resets some capacitors and helps restore batter life.

By: winston_lao

winston_lao — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:41:57 +0000

best way to use the battery is to use it till its in low power mode. recharge it then use it again till its in low power mode. saves electricity and expands the batteries life span

By: Billgate

Billgate — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 04:18:41 +0000

It’s better to use it until it runs out (or alert low).
You save electricity at this way and also saves your charger and your battery.

When battery are full it cut-off the supply to it but you are still using components to fire it including the charger.