Laptop Battery Charging Tips from the Pros

alvareztg.com/laptop-battery-charging-tips-from-the-pros

September 30, 2016

There’s a lot of talk these days about mobile phone batteries and charging, but laptop
batteries are in a class all their own and deserve attention. Your laptop battery is one of
its most important components – although we tend only to think of things like monitor
size, or RAM and CPU power when we speak of laptops. Laptop batteries require special
attention and care, and the lack of this is the reason why many laptop owners have to
replace their batteries sooner than they’d like. We’ve provided some laptop battery
charging tips and tricks for those of you who want to get the most out of your battery
life.

Should I Leave My Laptop Plugged in All the Time?

This is a question that comes up a lot with laptop owners. And the answer is a quite
simple “No.” For optimum battery use, and to get the most life out of your laptop
battery, keeping it charged between 40% and 80% has been seen as optimum. However,
the newer-generation lithium batteries do better in full charge cycles, so not letting it
get below 40% is a good rule of thumb there. And, you don’t want to leave it charging all
the time for another main reason – doing so can overheat the battery in some models,
which is the number one thing you want to avoid. That said, in many laptop models,
once the battery is 100% charged, it will cut off the power supply to the battery, so
keeping it charging is redundant after that point, and won’t harm the battery in most
cases.

Should I Completely Drain My Battery Before Re-Charging It?

This is another common question when it comes to laptop battery charging. The answer
is (as you can guess from the above question) No as well. Most late-generation laptop
batteries are either lithium-ion or lithium polymer, and as such, they are designed to be
able to withstand many charge cycles. As stated above, keeping your laptop plugged in
all the time won’t necessarily harm your battery, although laptop batteries do have a
finite number of charge-discharge cycles, so allowing your battery to completely
discharge will take away from its originally-intended lifespan.

What Are the Best Battery-Charging Tips for Laptops?

Not all laptops come with removable batteries for cool-down. And, internal cooling fans
can breakdown after a few years. Here are some standard battery charging tips courtesy
FossBytes for laptop owners that should help maximize your laptop battery life:

Avoid discharging your laptop completely after charging it. The best thing you can
do is try to keep the battery level between 40 percent to 80 percent.

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 Make sure that your laptop doesn’t get too hot and your cooling fan is working
properly.
Your laptop battery can’t “overcharge” and harm itself due to excessive charging.
It’s smart enough to bypass the charging energy.
Batteries charged to a full 100% have only 300-500 discharge cycles. Those
charged only up to 80% get nearly quadruple that number of recharging cycles.

PC Mag offers some salient laptop battery charging tips as well, including performing
battery backup, disabling unused devices and ports, and selecting battery saver or eco
mode, which will put your laptop into lower power states and not drain the battery as
much.

Need Further Questions Answered?

If you need further laptop battery charging questions answered, Alvarez Technology
Group is a proven leader in providing IT consulting and services in SALINAS. Contact
one of our expert IT staff at (831) 753-7677 or send us an email at info@alvareztg.com
today, and we will help you with any of your IT issues or needs.

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