- Should I remove the battery when A/C is plugged in?
- Battery discharges
- How to perform a calibration (full discharge)
- Prolonged storage
- Purchasing a replacement battery
- Advantages in using BatteryCare
- BatteryCare FAQ
Memory Effect
In lithium-based batteries this is in fact a myth, it only applies to older Nickle-based batteries. So fully discharging and charging the battery is completely useless and even harmful as we will see below.
The modern lithium battery can be charged regardless of its current percentage, given that it has absolutely no negative effect in its performance.
Should I remove the battery when A/C is plugged in?
Many laptop users have this question and we will answer it right now:
The answer is: YES and NO, it depends on the situation.
The answer is: YES and NO, it depends on the situation.
- In a normal usage, if the laptop doesn't get too hot (CPU and Hard Disk around 40ºC to 50ºC) the battery should remain in the laptop socket;
- In an intensive usage which leads to a large amount of heat produced (i.e. Games, temperatures above 60ºC) the battery should be removed from the socket in order to prevent unwanted heating.
Battery discharges
It's recommended to perform partial discharges to capacity levels of 20~30% and frequent charges, instead of performing a full discharging followed by a full charging.
If you did the same thing in the next day, it would be counted a discharge cycle and not two, so it may take several days until a full discharge cycle is completed.
How to perform a calibration (full discharge)?
- Fully charge the battery to its maximum capacity (100%);
- Let the battery "rest" fully charged for 2 hours or more in order to cool down from the charging process. You may use the computer normally within this period;
- Unplug the power cord and set the computer to hibernate automatically at 5% as described by the image sequence below (click images to enlarge). If you cannot select 5%, then you should use the minimum value allowed, but never below 5%;
- Leave the computer discharging, non-stop, until it hibernates itself. You may use the computer normally within this period;
- When the computer shuts down completely, let it stay in the hibernation state for 5 hours or even more;
- Plug the computer to the A/C power to perform a full charge non-stop until its maximum capacity (100%). You may use the computer normally within this period.
Prolonged storage
To store a battery for long periods of time, its charge capacity should be around 40% and it should be stored in a place as fresh and dry as possible.
Purchasing a replacement battery
If you intend to purchase another battery, it's recommended that you do it only when the current battery is very degraded.If it's not the case, the non usage of a battery leads to its degradation.
Besides that, when purchasing a battery you must pay attention to the manufacturing date.
Advantages in using BatteryCare
BatteryCare allows you to have the control over the discharge cycles number, and when this reaches 30 (or other configured value), it notifies you that it's time to perform a full discharge in order to keep the battery gauge calibrated.
Like this, it's guaranteed to always have the correct capacity values reported by the battery.
Besides, when using the battery, there's the possibility to suspend some Operating System features that help degrading the autonomy (only in Windows Vista or higher):
- Windows Aero, the theme that allows for visual effects like window transparency, requires graphics card acceleration, which obviously will help decreasing the battery lifetime;
- SuperFetch, ReadyBoost and SearchIndexer are three Windows Vista (and higher) services that, even in battery mode, are using the hard disk a lot and increase total power consumption, thus decreasing battery lifetime. Suspending these services has absolutely no negative impact on the performance or security of the system.
These features are resumed once the laptop is plugged in to A/C power.
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