Battery - Extend life

My son bought a new Lenovo G500S. His idea of extending life of battery is to not plug in the laptop and use the battery until it is nearly drained then charge it again.

I don't know much about this stuff and the posts I've found don't seem to give me information in a way I can understand it. I suspect there are different theories on this stuff.

I would appreciate some guidance. Thanks.

 

The idea of fully discharging and then charging up again only works for batteries with memory effect, namely NiCd or NiMH batteries . Lithium-ion batteries, the kind used by a laptop, however, are damaged by such use, as they have entirely different chemistry. My recommendation for maximum battery life is to discharge the laptop battery only shallowly; try to not let it discharge beyond 60%. More information here: How to Prolong Lithium-based Batteries - Battery University

If the laptop is to be used on AC always or most of the time, I would recommend you to discharge the battery to 40%, remove it, and then store it in a cool and dry place. Lithium-ion batteries lose capacity faster when exposed to high temperature and intense usage, so if portability is not your concern for now, it's best to remove and store it. For more information, refer to this site: How to Store Batteries – Battery University

Also, try to not let it stay at 100% all the time. Li-ion batteries degrade faster when the cell voltages are at maximum. Lenovo has an energy management software that automatically cuts off power to the battery when its capacity reaches a certain threshold (at least for my laptop, y510p), so do use it, and set the threshold to about 40%-60%. Only remember to set it back to 100% when you expect to actually use the laptop on battery.

 

Power-Saver mode auto underclocks the CPU, so that will probably increase battery life, so will dimming the screen. Like the person above me said, avoid doing discharges. Also don't forget to use Lenovo Energy Management to preserve the life of the battery, i am currently doing this with my laptop (Y410P).

Also, your G500s might have a Nvidia 720M in it (it's presence is indicated by a sticker on your system) and if it does, i recommend shutting it off to preserve battery life, as the integrated GPU is much better for saving power. To do this, open the Nvidia Control Panel, go to 3D settings, Preferred Graphics Processor and choose Integrated Graphics. This does wonders in terms of battery life for my Y410P, it should help your G500S too.

 

Thank you all for the great tips.