Tips that are widely accepted as good also include:
Don't run the battery completely dead. Doing so will shorten the battery life (for a Litium Ion battery).
Don't store the battery for long periods with a full charge. If storing it for long periods, store it with about a 60% charge.
Never let you battery get too hot. The hotter your battery gets the more it will shorten its life, especially during the charging cycle.
I have a 3.5 year old Latitude C800 at home. The main battery that came with it has been in it almost all of the time. For hte last 2 tears, this system has been running nearly 24x7 as my wife's primary PC. The battery stays in it even when it is in the docking station at home (where it resides most of the time). When she removes the system from the docking station and runs on the battery, she can still get over 1.5 hours of use from the battery. When I had the system new, it only gave me just over 2 hours, so that's not too bad for a 3.5 year old battery, at least in my opinion.
A point to consider is that shortly after I got that system, I started to use the I8KfanGUI because the system was becoming unstable as it was used for longer periods of time. I had determined that the system was probably overheating and pushing one (or more) of the components outside its "safe opperating range". Once I started using the fan control software, the system seldom rose above 55C and the system also became much more stable. When I upgraded from the C800 to a C840, I started with the I8KfaGUI immediately, and that system also ran quite well, and almost never "crashed". At just over 2 years old, its battery life has dimished more than I would like, but it is still quite well, considering that it is still more than half the original battery life (I think it originally ran about 2 hours and 20 minutes and now it runs about 1 hour and 40 minutes on battery). I will admit that I used the C840 battery much more extensively than I did the C800 battery. In either case, Dell only warrantees the batteries for a year, and Lithium battteries only have about 300 charge cycles, so I don't think I am doing too badly myself.
1. when docked at work and it is plugged in with the ac adapter, take the battery out.
2. at home, if there are outlets available, plug it in with the adapter and take the battery out, if you leave it in when you are working for a long time the battery will become shot so use the battery if there is no outlet available, otherwise take it out
2. never charge your battery for more than 5 hours at a time.
these steps will help you maintain a long battery life.
2. or don't plug the notebook to the power and instead run on the battery. When the battery gets low refil it. When the battery if full, unplug the power cable and run it on the battery.
Which one is best for the battery?
I use no. 2 most of the time. I don't use no.1 because if we have power outage I'm 'dead'. So what's you opinion on this?
Theoretically removing it when on AC would increase the life of your battery,
but then the thing about lithium-ion batteries is they will only live about 3-5 years once they come off the manufacturing line, regardless of use.
My approach is to leave the battery in, keep the laptop in a cool place when not using it and not leave it plugged into the wall except to charge and use it.
I use mine 70% of the time on AC power, but try not to let the battery run down all the way when I'm on the road since that can shorten the life of a lithium-ion cell.
If you use your computer almost exclusively on AC and only rely on the battery for
protection then I might suggest getting an Uninterruptible Power Supply and keeping
your battery in the fridge at 40% charge to prolong it's life.
JersWork
770 Posts
0
January 5th, 2005 17:00
Tips that are widely accepted as good also include:
strike_any_key_
23 Posts
0
January 5th, 2005 17:00
andrejB
1 Message
0
January 18th, 2005 10:00
Art
2 Intern
•
1.5K Posts
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June 28th, 2005 01:00
and rarely ever fully discharged.
It will still operste the Latitude LM about two hours, but I seldom ever ask for more than one.
So this life is from room temperature and 100% Charged, most of the time.
The original had been frequently 'deep-cycled' and was under :30 minute
life in less than two years.
The replacement (Feb '99) was not even new, but a Dell 'Spare-Parts' ReFurb
at half the cost of new from Dell OnLine Store.
Art
frogtumor
1 Message
0
June 28th, 2005 01:00
but then the thing about lithium-ion batteries is they will only live about 3-5 years once they come off the manufacturing line, regardless of use.
My approach is to leave the battery in, keep the laptop in a cool place when not using it and not leave it plugged into the wall except to charge and use it.
I use mine 70% of the time on AC power, but try not to let the battery run down all the way when I'm on the road since that can shorten the life of a lithium-ion cell.
If you use your computer almost exclusively on AC and only rely on the battery for
protection then I might suggest getting an Uninterruptible Power Supply and keeping
your battery in the fridge at 40% charge to prolong it's life.