Battery Saving Techniques

Hi,

So, I own an AW17 R3 and I am dreading when I have to replace the battery on this thing. It's really my only complaint about the system. My last machine, an AW M17X R3, went through 3 batteries and it was no problem at all to buy a new battery and put it in there. This machine however is a little more involved and I'm not a hardware guy by any means.

I leave my machine on 24/7 all night, no sleep (display turns off though). What are some things I can do to help preserve the battery as long as possible. Is there a way to 'unplug' the battery so I can just use the power cable (besides physically doing that)?

My last AW15 R1 unit (before I sold it), I noticed would let the battery drain then recharge... etc. Even though it was on the power coord, it said "not charging" until it hit like 30%. This laptop however, always says "100% fully charged". Is there something I am missing?

Any other tips are helpful!

Thanks

EDIT: I mistyped, my old AW15 was an R1 NOT an R2

 

Would be nice if we can switch off the 980 if we know no heavy gaming will be involved for a while (maybe stuck at airport or something with no outlet).

 

I meant more of saving the battery while plugged in 24/7. Although, funny that you should mention turning off the 980 because I'm also connected to the AMP so I assume my 980 is turned off

 

Jeff, are you referring to the previous generation, the 15 r1/17 r2? Because the 17 r2 I used had SEVERE problems with battery drain and recharging. This had nothing to do with being plugged in, and in the 3 weeks I owned the r2 I could see that the battery life would be measured in months.

I see no reason to be concerned about the battery life in the 17 r3 ( and I assume the 15 r2 is similar). Normally, leaving the computer on and pugged in should have ZERO impact on the battery. Are you seeing any of the drain/recharge cycles you saw in the previous computer? Because mine seems rock solid.

 

Interesting...

So, my old M17X R3 laptop, I left on 24/7 and over the course of 4 years, I went through 3 batteries... this is pretty good in my mind. I've heard (I could be wrong since I don't know much about batteries) that leaving a laptop on 24/7 plugged in does put wear/strain on the battery because it's constantly being charged and it never gets drained/recharged. Any one have any thoughts about this?

My AW15 *****R1 (Sorry, I misposted, I had an R1 unit, not R2 15)****** I noticed while plugged in, it would go to 100% then it would go to "Not Charging" till about 30% then back up to 100, etc. I didn't follow it too closely, but I believe that was what it was doing. I thought this was to actually preserve the battery and still think so, so it may last longer than my old laptops battery did (could be wrong again).

Now, my current machine AW 17 R3 (2015) is staying at 100% and says "Fully Charged"... but I'm just hoping tech has improved and this battery doesn't just die after ~8 months because it's plugged in 24/7. I guess nobody will really know since these have only been out for ~4 months, but the replacement looks to be a pain and I'd probably pay someone to do it.

I just want to preserve my battery as long as I can before that.

 

There is a "desktop" battery function. Click with the right mouse button the battery icon in the taskbar. You can select it there. There is a preserve battery function for people that keep it plugged in longer than 2 weeks.

 

Awesome! Just did it. I wonder if there's been any benchmarking to know how well this works over a long period of time.

 

No idea. But I do know current batteries wear out mostly due to discharge cycles and heat.

 

Wow. I just did this also. I take back what I said about keeping it plugged in--it appears that Dell has current running through the battery 100% of the time, rather than waiting for a discharge-level voltage. The "Desktop Charge" option appears to do what I though it did by default.

I'm going to keep watching this just to see how long it takes for the battery charge to fall. My battery capacity was at 96% when I just now enabled a one-time charge. IMO, if it takes a month or so for the charge to fall to 90% then I'll manually enable another one-time recharge. In my view that would be the ultimate battery-saving strategy.

Either way, I don't believe these new-gen machines have anywhere near the battery charging problems of the previous gen. And I still fully expect to use this ONE BATTERY for the next four years, with maybe a dozen full discharge cycles under use and the rest of the time plugged in.

 

4 years for any battery is tough i think. Because on average they do lose about 10% a year with very low use. They just wear down unfortunately.

 

errrrmmm.. ive tried the desktop mode which will use the battery instead of the PSU and i have noticed that CPU throttles down that why i always plugged in the PSU with high performance.. i have also tried looking for ways to preserve battery and i have concluded that plugging it all the time doesnt really wear down the battery because not like before the battery will stop charging when it reaches 100% and just use the PSU..

 

Desktop mode lets the battery rest while not in use.

 

Rinneh, I believe you regarding 10%/year capacity loss, but that just stinks. I can understand how cooking the battery with constant current would do this, but supposedly isolating the battery and recharging it infrequently ought to give you a nearly-new battery (~80% +) after four yers of non-use.

If Dell figured out how to cook these batteries (just to sell more batteries, I suppose), then people who don't use their batteries much can still save their batteries:

--INfrequent charging

--Charge from MODERATE discharge (80%, I'm guessing).

--Make sure battery is OFF the charger once it hits 100%.

I would also ASSUME that disabling rapid charge would help. I'm flying blind here, but batts get cooked by too many cycles (that's a constant), perhaps combined with charge voltage too high and/or float charge too lengthy.

 

a battery even not in use and not connected in the perfect temperature is losing capacity. Thats just how the chemistry works. Dell cant do anything about that. The chemistry inside crystalizes slowly over time thus losing capacity. Cycling and heating it up only accelerates this.

 

Here's some good tips for lithium ion batteries in general:
http://superuser.com/a/205123

 

Just wondering for those who has 15r2/17r3, when the desktop mode battery charge is enabled, does the battery ever go below 100%? Cause mine stay at 100% and it says "fully charged".

I dont turn it on 24/7, but always plug it in to the wall adapter.

 

There are too many myths stated there. A refrigerator is not good for a battery. Condesations etc.

 

But it comes from a site called "Battery University" !!!

 

They also state that lithium ion typically only last around 300cycles while there are packs that can handle 2000 It seems a bit outdated.

 

i have activated desktop mode and im having power throttling issue.. is this because of the 180W PSU?
i have noticed if i dont use desktop mode i dont get this much of power throttling maybe the max is like 5% and with desktop mode it reached 48%.. T_T
this is just 2hrs playing dota.. and the 5% power throttling is like half a day.. does it got something to do with temps? my thermal paste is stock and im no good with disassembling laptop.. ill wait abit if it reaches 95% and contact dell so they will change the heat sink for me and let them do a repaste using my thermal paste.

 

hey i am experiencing total 2% wear battery since overclocking
right now i am at 9 % wear from 7 % on 11 months old laptop and 180 watt psu
beware to not heavy ocing your system with 180 watt psu

 

mine is all stock.. no OC.. btw what program did you use to know the wear level of the battery?

 

hey i am useing aida64
nice program

 

Aida64 is the only reason why my 7x64 runs gadgets

 

There are alot of battery saving techniques, but they were all in the older Alienware threads, like for the M14X-R2 or M17X-R4 threads..etc..

I think there are option somewhere to say when the battery will start charging and when it will not, I forget where I saw this, and it might have been a bios option on one of the unlocked bios, or in AWCC.
Ideally you would want to drain the battery at least every week, and not too low, because its a Lithium battery - like to 7-8% is okay. Then charge it up without interruption, with a slow/medium charge after the battery has cooled. Or wait for the battery to cool, then do something demanding on the laptop so there is very little power charging it when its plugged in, so it gets a much slower charge, until its full, this will tame the battery abit, and prevent loss of oxygen and overall capacity on the battery.
Its a pain in the ass to do this though, I imagine. You could maybe take the battery out, and freeze it, then charge it normally...but I wouldn't advise it. You could find an electrical engineer to make you a better battery. Theres tons of sites you can find that hav the cells you need, then its just wiring it to each individual cell (to keep it balanced and read its power level, lithiums are connected differently than older batteries would be, and have sensors) and wiring them together as normal for the power.
I'd rebuild smaller things that used Lithium batteries, like wireless headsets or RF radio' batteries for my RC cars etc.. if you can find something like 10-15C, 20 Ampheres 17-21V range should be good to use as a new battery cell wise, of course you'd have to look much further into it. just know, it can be done !

 

If the machine is on AC 24/7 and really ever used on battery then not sure why it matters. But I generally run my laptops down to 5-10% then plug hem back in to fully charge 2-3 times a month.

 

I fly helicopters (RC) and use to travel to race 1/8th scale buggies. I store all my helicopter recover packs at 10-20% charge. I always slow charge them the night before I go fly.

 

Thats what I race 1/8th scale, with electric conversions
Like a MP777 Kyosho

 

so, sounds like you know exactly what I'm talking about, in terms of battery. I can see why now your more fixated on it then most users (who simply don't notice much of its behavior)

 

Nice my last buggy was a Kyosho 777 with a RB Concepts .21. I raced a Mugen buggy for years before switching to the Kyosho. I also raced a serpent 1/8th scale street car for a while. Talk about fast that street car scared me sometimes.

 

haha yeah I have a modified brushless 550 rotor with the etxra larger shafts , 5mm... I forget the Krpm but with a balanced 6 cell LiPo and an temporary unlimited ESC it ran so fast , the soft threads once enlarged to touch eachother front vs back and made the thing flip over a small house near a park. Will enevr forget it. Too fast to use, in even an open baseball field. Stopped using it on the highways too, because it could easily go 100km/h, but the roads are **** in quebec, and no suspension can compensate enough for the variations to go straight without error at that speed that small scale.

Ive seen the sport pickup immensely though. here in quebec/montreal. Lots of people racing and playing all over.

 

I say temporary ESC, because Ultimately Ive burnt every one I've tried too. No matter what they promised, none can handle constant power of that motor I have.