Leaving laptop plugged in all the time, bad for battery?

[barch 88]

I picked up my first laptop and I mostly use it on a desk and keep it plugged in. I was wondering if leaving it plugged in all the time, while the battery is fully charged is bad for the laptop, or battery at all.

Thanks.

[thefultonhow]

Unless you have a Lenovo, yes. Take out the battery if it is fully charged and the laptop is plugged in; this will increase battery lifespan.

[Panama Red]

Found this on another forum. It purports to be a quote directly from Dell.

"Question: Should I totally discharge, then recharge my Dell laptop battery occasionally to make it last longer?
Answer: No, discharging and charging does not increase the life of a Lithium Ion technology battery.

Question: Can a Dell laptop battery be "overcharged"?
Answer: No, the battery is designed to stop using the charger when it reaches full charge. "

[thefultonhow]

The battery won't be overcharged if you leave it in -- however, the heat from the laptop will discharge the battery a bit and then the computer will recharge it. This uses up a charge cycle (the same as discharging down to 20% would), and batteries can only go for 100-150 charge cycles before losing quite a bit of capacity.

[POISON]

OUCH ... thanks for god I made a look at this ! ... I leave my laptop most of the day working and charging when ever its on with the battery on !

I will start to take it out when its fully charged and not using the charger ...

thanks for that !

[TwoRails]

Ya, good tip. I'm going to get into the habit of pulling the batter when not in use (and I've been leaving the charger hooked up). Heck, I can go months and not use the laptop...

[The Village Idiot]

There was somebody who owned a laptop who would leave it in for a long periods, alas the laptop eventually wouldn't boot up 'apparently' the battery cells remember they're being charged and then don't function without power. I dunno, I always just leave my laptop unplugged after it's fully charged, just for good measure.

[TwoRails]

I just pulled my battery and at least it was stone cold to the touch. It's been in the laptop, with charger hooked up, since about late January or early February if I remember right.

[JBouchard1087]

That is not true, leaving the battery in the laptop will be fine. Batteries are designed to stop charging once full. I have had this laptop for over 2 years now and am still on the origonal battery. This computer never shuts off, i leave it on 24/7. When i take it to classes the battery still lasts over 5 hours, just like it did from day one.

[thefultonhow]

Actually, you just got lucky. Either that, or you have an IBM/Lenovo, which has a feature built into the power management software that won't charge the battery until it gets down below ~95%. This feature will keep the computer from wasting charge cycles by recharging every time the heat discharges the battery to 99%.

Yes, the battery will stop charging when full -- otherwise it would probably catch on fire. But that doesn't mean it won't discharge and recharge.

I have seen many people with dead batteries or batteries with much less than their design capacity due to a large number of charge cycles. My battery, which is only nine months old, says that it's gone through 62 charge cycles, and although the design capacity is 77.75 Watt-hours, the current full charge capacity is only 73.06 Wh. When the battery gets to 150 charge cycles, full charge capacity will have dropped off significantly, and there's also a decently high chance that the battery will have died completely.

[JBouchard1087]

Maybe i was lucky then. I have a toshiba maybe they also have this sort of software.