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General Laptop Battery Information
- Laptop batteries should last approximately 1.5 to 3 years (or 500-800 recharges).
- Depending on the type of battery, a poorly conditioned battery can begin to lose effectiveness within the first month of use.
- If you travel a lot and use and charge your battery frequently, then you might only get a couple years at most out of your battery.
- Batteries age even if not used.
Types of Batteries
Laptop batteries contain chemicals which react together to produce electricity. The three main types of batteries are Nickel-Cadmium (Ni-CD), Nickel Metal Hydride (Ni-MH), and Lithium Ion (Li-Ion). One of the latest types is Lithium Polymer. Due to health and safety and inefficiencies Nickel Cadmium and Nickel Metal Hydride batteries are being phased out.
Nickel-Cadmium Batteries (Ni-CD)
Nickel-Cadmium Batteries (Ni-CD) batteries must be fully discharged and then fully recharged every few weeks. If you do not do this, it will quickly lose battery life due to what is called “memory effect.” This means that it will only charge up to the percentage of last charge. Therefore, it will only be able to charge at 100% if you discharge it all the way.
Nickel Metal Hydride Batteries (Ni-MH)
Nickel Metal Hydride Batteries (Ni-MH) batteries are similar to the Nickel-Cadmium batteries in that they need to be fully discharged and then fully recharged every few weeks, although they are not as prone to the “memory effect” and have more capacity to charge.
Lithium Ion Batteries (Li-Ion)
Lithium Ion Batteries (Li-Ion) batteries will lose effectiveness if they are overcharged or left in full charge without use. For example, if you rarely use the battery and keep the laptop plugged in, the battery will lose effectiveness. There can also be problems if the battery is fully charged and then not used, then charged again.
Lithium Polymer Batteries
Lithium Polymer batteries have adapted from Lithium Ion Batteries. Lithium Polymer batteries will also lose effectiveness if they are overcharged or left in full charge without use. Lithium Polymer batteries have a greater life cycle degradation rate and its capacity is slightly less than that of the standard lithium-ion battery.
Proper Use and Maintenance
For new batteries
- Charge battery for 12 hours when you first receive it.
- Fully charge/discharge the batter two to four times to condition the battery.
Note: If the charger stops charging the battery before full charge, unplug and replug in the charger to restart charging.
Every day use
- If you connect to an electrical outlet for long periods of time you should remove your battery to prevent a constant state of charging.
- Even if you use AC power most of the time, use the battery periodically to keep it in good condition. Unplug your AC adapter when the computer is not in use to prevent overcharging.
- Charge your battery to full, then run it on battery power only until it is completely out if using Ni-Cd or Ni-MH batteries to prevent the “memory effect” or mostly out for Li-Ion to prevent overcharging.
- Do not expose the battery to extreme temperatures. Do not leave your battery outside in the cold or in your car in the summer. Cold batteries can’t create very much power and hot batteries will discharge very quickly. Permanent damage will result if the battery is stored in temperatures above 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Watch for over heating. This may occur if your laptop fan cannot circulate the air properly when your laptop is sitting on a soft surface.
- Watch your battery use. Keep an eye on your battery consumption and know how much power you have remaining. Use the battery power icon on the system tray or you can purchase batteries which have LED gauges on the outside of the battery itself.
- Don’t run programs or devices that you aren’t using. Remove PC cards and turn off Wi-Fi software. Using your laptop to watch movies or play games will drain the battery quickly as well.
Storage
- If you do not use your laptop for extended periods of time (greater than a week), remove the battery from the laptop and store it in a cool, dry place away from heat and metal objects.
- Store the battery at a 40-50 percent charge level. Never fully charge or discharge the battery before storage. The 40-50 percent charge assures a stable condition even if self-discharge robs some of the battery's energy.
Optimal Settings
For basic computer usage, here are some tips for how to run the computer to lengthen the battery life. This involves minimizing the computing experience, but if done correctly, you can increase the battery runtime, and sometimes well above the advertised times.
- Turn off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. If they're not needed, turn off wireless technologies, since these will consume battery power to both broadcast and receive wireless signals.
- Dim the screen. The screen is one of the largest battery drainers in the system, and we recommend that you dim the screen as much as possible. Ideally, you should run the screen on the first brightness setting for the best battery life. This can take some getting used to, but the difference in the time yield between minimal brightness and full brightness can be hours.
- Turn off the screen when pausing work. Depending on what's being done on the computer, there may be times where you are thinking about your work, or not actively looking at the screen and interacting with the computer. This can be for a few seconds or minutes, but one habit that will increase the battery life is to fully dim the display when not in use. For instance, before taking a break to stretch or chat with people, hit the dim key until the screen turns off completely. Then only brighten the screen enough to do the next few tasks and dim it again when done with those tasks. This habit can greatly increase the battery runtime.
- Turn off keyboard backlighting. As with the display, the backlight on the keyboard should be turned off unless you absolutely need it, and then only turn it on minimally.
- Put computer in sleep mode when taking long breaks. Avoid turning off the computer, since booting it up will drain the battery. Instead, if you are taking a break from you work for 5 to 10 minutes, put the computer in sleep mode.
- Disconnect peripheral devices. Any peripheral device will take some power to run, and we recommend you minimize the use of these devices. USB mice, hard drives, and even thumb drives all will take some energy to run, and as such, will lower the runtime of the computer. In addition, avoid using the CD/DVD drive.
- Turn off unnecessary applications. Any open application will take up additional CPU cycles. Any media players, menu widgets, and utilities that you have installed will use CPU cycles, and we recommend you quit these applications while on the battery. Minimize web browsing, and when you're done viewing a web page, close the browser window.
- Control power usage. Use as little power as possible by adjusting laptop settings. Use the Power Options to set the laptop to go inactive after a set amount of time. Set adjustments so that the display goes off first, then hard the hard drive stay active a bit longer and store the system content’s to the RAM.