Keeping Your Laptop Plugged in All the Time Will Kill Its Battery Fast

[richnrockville]

I am not sure about this article but I have always kept my Toshiba's plugged in all the time and have
had no problems.

Keeping Your Laptop Plugged in All the Time Will Kill Its Battery Faster | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Rich

Added: That's why I did not put it anyplace else but here..

 

[AmericanPharaoh]

I've got a few Dell 17" Laptops which I too keep plugged in all time. One is nearly three, the other nearly two years old. When I take either one off the charger... over to the easy chair or couch, they run for hours off their batteries. I have read similar articles all claiming by keeping it plugged in will shorten battery life. Although, I'm still waiting for this to happen. More than any other factor, I think heat will kill the battery faster. Regular batteries are inexpensive, so I say why worry.

 

[Shadowjk]

I've had about an hours worth of battery usage lost due to keeping my old one plugged in for about a year ... woops

The main thing that affects them are the temperature changes, too hot or too cold and their life time just disappears

Josh

 

[bigseb]

Prolly depends on the make of your laptop. Kept my Acer Aspire constantly plugged in while using it and after only a few months the battery couldn't even hold enough charge for a boot-up.

 

[AmericanPharaoh]

Prolly depends on the make of your laptop. Kept my Acer Aspire constantly plugged in while using it and after only a few months the battery couldn't even hold enough charge for a boot-up.

I know some of the batteries have had recalls. Did you check into this?

 

[bigseb]

Prolly depends on the make of your laptop. Kept my Acer Aspire constantly plugged in while using it and after only a few months the battery couldn't even hold enough charge for a boot-up.

I know some of the batteries have had recalls. Did you check into this?

No. This is about 6 years ago. These days runs straight from the charger and is used by my 5 year old to play Mario and Spiderman so...

 

[Shadowjk]

It probably only had 3 or 4 cells in it. The more cells in the battery then the longer the battery life... usually

Josh

 

[bigseb]

Maybe... like I say it doesn't matter anymore.

 

[Joan Archer]

I keep mine plugged in all day, I'm not using it all day but when I'm not using it I just shut the lid which puts it to sleep. I just unplug it when I shut the machine down at the end of the day.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Prolly depends on the make of your laptop. Kept my Acer Aspire constantly plugged in while using it and after only a few months the battery couldn't even hold enough charge for a boot-up.

That's because it was an Acer. I haven't owned anything from Acer that wasn't pure garbage.

 

[d00p98uy]

just a thought, If you just removed the battery while you were using it at you desk (plugged in of course!), and plugged it back in when you wanted to move, wouldn't that solve the problem all together?
anyways, I've always kept all my laptops plugged in while using them, and have never had a problem

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

The article is partially correct. Lithium-ion batteries live longest when kept charged to 40-50% of capacity. The author didn't look hard enough for Windows apps that will advise of battery levels. I have a battery meter program on my Lenovo notebook that shows the charge state of the battery in the taskbar. The notebook came with a power management program that can be set to maintain the battery at 40-50% to ensure longer life. Leaving it plugged in has no effect on the battery other than to allow the notebook to run on AC and not draw from the battery.

 

[Joan Archer]

The article is partially correct. Lithium-ion batteries live longest when kept charged to 40-50% of capacity. The author didn't look hard enough for Windows apps that will advise of battery levels. I have a battery meter program on my Lenovo notebook that shows the charge state of the battery in the taskbar. The notebook came with a power management program that can be set to maintain the battery at 40-50% to ensure longer life. Leaving it plugged in has no effect on the battery other than to allow the notebook to run on AC and not draw from the battery.

I have one on my Asus, it sits in the Notification area showing the level of the battery and whether it's charging or not, very helpful.

 

[bigseb]

Prolly depends on the make of your laptop. Kept my Acer Aspire constantly plugged in while using it and after only a few months the battery couldn't even hold enough charge for a boot-up.

That's because it was an Acer. I haven't owned anything from Acer that wasn't pure garbage.

That's a bit harsh, imo. I'm very happy with the quality of their stuff. Laptop still works 100% after all. Incidentally the same thing happened to my wife's Compaq.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Prolly depends on the make of your laptop. Kept my Acer Aspire constantly plugged in while using it and after only a few months the battery couldn't even hold enough charge for a boot-up.

That's because it was an Acer. I haven't owned anything from Acer that wasn't pure garbage.

That's a bit harsh, imo. I'm very happy with the quality of their stuff. Laptop still works 100% after all. Incidentally the same thing happened to my wife's Compaq.

That's not at all harsh; it's based on actual experience. I've owned two Acer Netbooks and an Acer desktop that came with an Acer keyboard and mouse. The first netbook died one month out of warranty. The only reason I got the second netbook was it was the only one with XP I could find (I didn't like Vista, which was the OS du jour at the time) and it died a few months after I got it. I was so disgusted with Acer by then, instead of getting it fixed or replaced under warranty, I just salvaged the HDD and PSU from it and got an ASUS which was still working two years later when I replaced it last summer with a notebook. I've since learned that the Acer netbooks had a reputation for early failure.

I got the desktop shortly after I got the first netbook. I immediately replaced the keyboard and mouse with the seven year old ones from my old Gateway. The keyboard just never felt right and ate up a precious rear USB port (it had only four USB ports on the back, yet it also had four on the front; how many people need that many front USB ports?). The mouse was designed in such a way (mostly cheap) that just the weight of my palm on it would click it; it also ate up another rear USB port (the gateway mouse and keyboard used PS/2 ports, which the Acer had). The desktop itself ate the Ram installed in it (just out of warranty, of course). I had three HDDs (two Seagates and a WD) fail in it; I've never had a HDD fail in any other machine I've owned, including the Gateway I had for seven years. Except for the IDE HDD that was in the Gateway and the HDDs from the Acer desktop, I still have, and occasionally use, all the HDDs I had in my previous machines.

 

[indianacarnie]

Keep mine plugged in 24/7 during the winter/off season with no notable degradation (3 to 6 months depending on my route for the year.) Going on 2 years now.

 

[Bongo]

I have had 3 Acers laptops and 1 desktop and never had 1 problem with them, all still running.

Only have replaced 1 battery in 4 years and I leave them plugged in 24/7

My Sager I use now is plugged in 24/7.

To me it's a good backup if you lose power you have a lot of time to turn it off.