Best Battery Threshold Setting

what do you guys set yours at? i'm currently using stop at 95% and don't charge till 60%

 

Why stop at 95%? I prefer to charge fully...
My setting is start charge at 85% and stop at 100%.

 

Lithium Ion batteries lose charge faster when exposed to the extremes. I too have mine at 95% and 60%

 

I have mine start charging at 35% and stop at 45%, except if I'm about to leave on a long trip or something. I almost never need to use my laptop "on the go", so I generally only need the batter power to move it between AC sockets, and to prevent data loss from power loss. I keep it minimally charged to reduce age-related capacity loss: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Storage_temperature_and_charge

 

Same. This also has the added benefit of speeding up charge times, because the 95%-100% top off takes a really long time. I am able to get 5 hours on my x200 at 60%, this is as good as my T40 ever got, so I see no reason to top it off until it drops below this mark.

If I intended to use my laptop plugged in almost all the time, I would probably choose 30%/50% (≈40% is best for long term storage for Li-Ion). However, I use my x200 on battery at least some almost every single day, so keeping it at close to full charge makes sense.

 

As long as you don't decharge it all the way and continually top it off at the top I think you're fine.

 

I agree with that, and I think that the thresholds are a very effective way to ensure that you don't continually top if off.

 

Don't these batteries have some sort of technology that stops it from charging when it would become damaging?

 

Yes, but that is not what we are saying. The batteries will not overchage, but keeping them at their full charge ALL THE TIME is not a good idea either. Li-Ion batteries degrade if they are always full, and especially if they are warm (i.e. plugged in with a running computer). Therefore it is best to charge them as infrequently as you can if possible, and keep them idle and at moderate charge when plugged in if you can.

 

hmm well that's not very good.... im glad the T400 has a good battery life.

 

The issue is reduced capacity over time. My old T40 had a 6 cell with a 47.52 WHr rating. On my first battery I did not know how to properly treat it. I cycled it several times for little reason, topped it off all the time, ran it to zero (notebook flat shuts off, not standby/hibernate) and was otherwise torturous to it. After 1 year it was down to about 32 WHr. After 5 years it was reduced to a rated 6.5 WHr, but would run about 30 minutes AFTER it hit 0%. I replaced it with a new battery and was much gentler to it (only dropped it to zero once or twice), and after 1 year of use it was still at around 41 WHr.

Main point of advice is don't run your battery to true zero, and don't top it off all the time. If you follow this simple method you should get improved performance from your battery in your 2nd and 3rd year of ownership. The battery charge thresholds and auto standby alarms are simply an easy and effective means to accomplish this task.

 

Never mind, found it

 

can anyone help me find this Battery Threshold setting? I'm running vista and i cant for the life of me find it.

 

Power Manager > Switch to: Advanced(Top Right Corner) > Battery(tab) > Battery Maintenane button (Top right cornerish)

 

go to power manager > switch to advanced > battery > battery maintenance

 

How do u get into power manager?? I can get into power options but it seems like that's not the same thing you guys are talking about

 

should be on your task bar on the very right but not on the time toolbar. it's a little green battery with either a time(if on battery) or a percentage(if on charging)

 

goto start > all programs> thinkvantage> power manager

in case you don't see the green battery icon.

 

wait is this option only available for thinkpads?? Because i have an ideapad

 

what about relying on automatic settings? Mine started at :
charge at 96%, stop at 100%
I trust it will adjust this as the battery capacity drops.

 

It might, although personally I have very little faith in automatic solutions. 96% to 100% is the same as not doing anything at all. I think you should adjust the thresholds to whatever suits your work pattern best. If you need 80% battery life to get through your day, then you should start charging at 80% or higher. Conversely, if you can get by on as low as 40% of your battery, then you may want to set the base there. I use the 95% stop point as much for speed as for battery health, it takes a very long time to go from 95% to 100%.

 

so what about the cycle counts in the battery page?
I wonder what that is based on. Is there a threshold Lenovo set that increments the cycle count, or is it based on a more complex algorithm?

My only concern, really, is to prolong the battery life. I am wondering if a setting lower than 96%, say 80% would result in actual (not lenovo-decided) cycles and thus reduce lifespan..

 

lithium ion batteries like to be treated gently. mine starts charging at 10% and stops at 40%. i use the battery as little as possible. when i need battery power, i charge it to 95%.

 

Can the OS and/or any software on the system handle this for you? It just seems like an annoying thing to keep track of.

 

the power manager does this. you just select two things;

when your battery starts charging.

wen your battery stops charging.

easy. for instance, my battery is currently at 42% and is not charging even though it's plugged in. this is really a great feature of the power manager from lenovo...

as above, my battery won't start charging until it gets below 10%, and stops charging at 40%

 

Why the 10%->40% system? As already discussed the optimum storage time is 40%; thus, you would preserve your battery capacity longer if you used a 25%->55% instead. Also I would be very careful about letting it get as low as 10%, that leaves you just 10 days until you reach 0% at which point the battery can reach a voltage where any individual cell can trip the safety circuit will permanently disable the battery (without opening the battery and manually charging it back to a low level).

 

because i use my battery as little as possible, like i posted above... therefore it is at 40% (and on AC power) 99% of the time. when i need to use the battery for a full day, i charge it to 95% or so and use it. i very rarely actually go to 10% or below. after using battery power, i charge up to 40% and there is stays until i need battery power again.

i'm not sure what you are talking about with 10 days? huh? i guess it was not apparent that even though my charge starting point is 10%, i keep the battery at 40% practically all of the time, and also use AC power practically all the time (so it's at 40% and there is no battery activity)?

but thanks anyway for trying to be helpful...

 

what your guys's opinion on leaving the battery in while plugged into AC? Do you advise to remove the battery while on AC power?

 

i leave the battery in, mostly out of laziness. i am willing to try to make the battery last as long as possible, but not be inconvenienced with carting it in and out of the fridge. the attached thumbnails are from http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm

according to them, if my battery is at 40% and about 25 C (which is what it is usually at) i will have 96% of total capacity after one year as opposed to 98% if i kept it in the frigde at 0 C. i can deal with 2% more battery loss not having to play around with taking the battery in and out.

the main reason they tell you to remove the battery on AC power is twofold- high temperature and full charges are bad for battery longevity. with the power manager, however, you don't have to charge your battery to 100%, as happens with a lot of modern laptops...

check out how charge/discharge rate affects battery longevity! yikes! makes me want a 60W charger instead of a 90W! charging and discharging your laptop 'tenderly' can make a huge difference in the number of cycles you get out of it.