[ltp] Re: Thinkpad battery exhausted in less than a year?

[Brian Nelson]

On Mon, Nov 15, 2004 at 06:03:22PM -0500, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 15, 2004 at 07:53:46PM +0100, Martin Gramatke wrote:
> > 
> > Meanwhile I had a phone call with IBM. They adviced me to remove the battery
> > when the notebook is plugged in and in use. I should charge the battery
> > only when the notebook is off. This is quite impractical. They also told me
> > to do a total discharge every now and then.
> > I can not believe that this is the right way, because I have never heard
> > from other notebook users that they mount/dismount their battery all the
> > time. The battery is also important to give the notebook a better stand.
> 
> Charging the battery only when the notebook will help, somewhat, but
> my guess is that your main problem is the large number of
> charge/discharge cycles.  That's pretty much guaranteed to wipe out
> your batteries in very short order.  Really, you're going to to be
> better off just simply keeping the notebook plugged into the AC mains
> as much as possible.

I kept my last laptop (a Toshiba) plugged in on AC and left on nearly
24/7 and the battery could no longer hold any charge at all when the
laptop was only about 1.5 years old.

With my new laptop, I only turn it on and plugged in when I'm using it.
When I'm not, I power it off and unplug it from AC.  This seems to be
making a big difference in preserving the battery life.

-- 
For every sprinkle I find, I shall kill you!