Unplug battery to preserve battery

Does any of you guys unplug your battery if the laptop will just be plugged in 24/7? It seems like it will preserve the life of the battery.

 

Windows detects when u are not using the battery so it offers a mode to stop charging the battery, can't seem to trigger it on windows 10 tho

 

Not sure about the new models, but on the M15X you can press FN+F2 to disable battery charging. My M11X also has this option but it's in the BIOS. My Precision M4500 also has a function key to disable battery charging as well.

If your laptop does not have this option from the keyboard, check your BIOS. Problem with the BIOS method is that you need to go back in to your BIOS to enable battery charging.

Take a look at this article. It may answer some questions about battery life and longevity and what factors (mainly heat) lead to premature degradation.\

http://batterycare.net/en/guide.html

 

Oh found it, right clic on the battery icon and there you'll find desktop battery mode.

 

I had heard claims that when you do this, it will essentially run from the battery periodically, which can greatly reduce gaming performance. I just enabled it on my 17R3 and will test the theory, but just something that I figured was worth mentioning.

 

i tried desktop battery mode and it will use the battery between 50% to 80% i think. so it will start charging when the battery reaches 49% and stops at 80% then it will use the battery which means it will throttle cpu to 800MHZ thus bad gaming performance. thats why i stopped using it. anyways i have read that just keeping the PSU plugged in will do less damage because once the battery is at 100% it will stop charging and use the PSU power. correct me if im wrong on that.. LOL.. anyways desktop battery mode will reduce performance.. sad T_T

 

I wouldn't unplug anything, because if the battery isn't occassionally topped off it will degrade sooner. The ideal charge profile if you are almost never using the battery (like me), is to choose the slower charge profile and simply let the charger top off the battery every now and then. On my r3 that I've had for ~3 months it has done this only once.

The life of all rechargeable batteries is rated in charge cycles, and on this battery the rating is either 300 or 400 cycles, IIRC. Here they are talking about a "full" drain and recharge cycle, which is likely around 70% or 80% depleted and then fully charged. For something like a 10% top off the is FAR less wear on the battery, and the equivilent rating would likely be several thousands of cycles. To me that says the battery is never going to be an issue.

 

Problem with the dektop mode is that if the system detects that u unplug the cable it will "think" u are about to use the battery so that mode turns off itself. Another method might be just unplugging the battery, is just a tiny cable and it would save the battery for longer periods. Luckily for this laptop the battery is far from the heat zones, that killed my old laptop battery, thing almost exploded.

 

I'd caution to be careful with keeping the battery cables unplugged as one 'oops,' in tripping over the main power cord (kids etc..) connected to the laptop, could cause data loss if you were in progress of any type of transferring. Just make sure the power cord is away from any potential snagging to where it won't unplug it cold turkey.