Conditioning a Battery for my new ThinkPad

Hello,

I purchased a T-420 (delivery next Tuesday) with the 9-cell battery and the 9-cell sheet battery and am curious about the proper way to condition these batteries.

I was at MicroCenter yesterday and asked a salesman in the laptop department how I should plan on conditioning these batteries. He said let them run down completely till they die once per week and then charge them to a 100% immediately after that.

Does he know what he is talking about or is he another misinformed sales guy?

Thanks!!

 

That is the proper way of conditioning it for sales, so your battery will die within a month and you'll have to drop another $180 on one.

You only do that if you want to reset the battery gauge, and that should only be done every 30-ish cycles.

 

I sort of figure if I have to buy a new battery every few years, that's worth not having to think about it, but that's me.

 

I replace entire computer systems once about every 3 years, so I'd prefer it if my battery didn't die on me within that time frame.

 

I'd say the chances of that are slim.

 

I expect to replace my battery in a year and a half or so as I'll be using it for 6 ~ 8hrs every day, so I'm not too worried about it. And from what I've read on the internet, a Li-ion battery lasts not that amazingly long even under the best of conditions anyways.

But, more on the topic of conditioning, I personally leave the battery out at 40% charge if I know I'm not going to use it, I don't know how much that actually helps with maintaining the battery, but my battery is still in near new capacity after 3 months of ownership (well, that's expected almost regardless of maintenance).

 

Dang!!!! Finally someone that sees it the way I do! I do trivial things like set it to only start a charge below 90%, but other than that I just forget about it and use it!

I've used many Thinkpads and I've practiced many of these battery techniques over the years and I'm not convinced it was ever worth it. I've never had to prematurely replace a battery and they've always lasted what I would deem a normal amount of time. They are consumable items and I bought it to use it, not to micro manage it.

Ah well, to each his own. If you have the time to do battery pulls and be constantly checking charge/discharge states, by all means do what you feel is best!

 

Li batteries do not like being totally discharged.... they like regular top ups and for long-term storage a 40% charge is about the best (which is why your battery will probably have come from lenovo with about a 40% charge). I set my batteries to only charge when below 50% and stop at 95%.... has served me well

 

Keep it between 10% and 90%. If you're in a hot sunny place and have a car, take the battery with you if you're going to leave the laptop in the car for extended periods of time. (Alternatively, put it under the seat, where cold air should remain way longer.)

I found that totally draining (with auto hibernate disabled so it actually totally drains) with the first few cycles increased my total available capacity on a T400 Panasonic 6-cell. At it's peak, I had a wear of -6% (likely an extra 1% per cell).

 

Li-ion batteries degrade fastest when the remaining capacity is at 0% or 100%. To stretch the lifespan, keep it at around 40%-50% whenever you can.

 

Sweet, I will not follow the poor advice I was given. This forum is so pleasing! Part of me just asked him because I wanted to see what a ridiculous response I would receive from the sales guy. I think he still lives in his mom's basement!

 

You say that like it's bad.