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The De-evolution of My Laptop Battery

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Re: The De-evolution of My Laptop Battery

#41

Post by GuiA »

outworlder wrote: post #36

As far as I understand, there are two major factors that will shorten the battery life considerably. One is heat. This may not be avoidable depending on the computer usage. My mom "plays" Second Life (for english lessons) and her battery barely lasted two years - expanding to the point that the trackpad on her Macbook Pro was sticking out. Another is leaving the computer plugged in all the time, which will top the ba…

>Another is leaving the computer plugged in all the time, which will top the battery - and apparently lithium batteries hate that.

I thought modern batteries had mechanisms in place to prevent that?

Re: The De-evolution of My Laptop Battery

#42

Post by driverdan »

sixothree wrote: post #20

Is this guy really a developer? I can't imagine using a single 15" monitor to accomplish anything at a productive pace.

I used 2+ monitors from 2000 to 2010ish. After switching to only laptops I gave up secondary displays and never went back. The only times I miss it is when I want to have docs open. I don't know why you'd need it otherwise.

Re: The De-evolution of My Laptop Battery

#44

Post by outworlder »

GuiA wrote: post #41
outworlder wrote: post #36

As far as I understand, there are two major factors that will shorten the battery life considerably. One is heat. This may not be avoidable depending on the computer usage. My mom "plays" Second Life (for english lessons) and her battery barely lasted two years - expanding to the point that the trackpad on her Macbook Pro was sticking out. Another is leaving the computer plugged in all the time, which will top the ba…

>Another is leaving the computer plugged in all the time, which will top the battery - and apparently lithium batteries hate that. I thought modern batteries had mechanisms in place to prevent that?

I'd think that they will actually recharge to somewhat less than 100%. But Apple still recommends unplugging the computer from time to time, so I'm assuming they get to very near full capacity.

My laptop is plugged in to a Thunderbolt Display almost all the time, so the battery gets topped off. It says that it is "charged", but I have no idea how much absolute capacity is that.

If I'm not going to unplug the notebook anytime soon (not travelling, not weekend), then I should be able to tell to leave it half charged (half, since discharging completely is even worse).

Re: The De-evolution of My Laptop Battery

#45

Post by outworlder »

ddeck wrote: post #38
outworlder wrote: post #36

As far as I understand, there are two major factors that will shorten the battery life considerably. One is heat. This may not be avoidable depending on the computer usage. My mom "plays" Second Life (for english lessons) and her battery barely lasted two years - expanding to the point that the trackpad on her Macbook Pro was sticking out. Another is leaving the computer plugged in all the time, which will top the ba…

>Some electric cars have the option to only recharge the battery up to 80%, to increase the lifespan. Would it be possible to do the same with laptop batteries? Perhaps by patching the SMC? My laptop (X1 carbon) does this, I assumed most did. The Lenovo power manager let's you choose when to start charging and when to stop. I start below 40% and stop at 85%.

That's nice. I wasn't aware of notebooks which let you do that.

Re: The De-evolution of My Laptop Battery

#46

Post by coin »

GuiA wrote: post #41
outworlder wrote: post #36

As far as I understand, there are two major factors that will shorten the battery life considerably. One is heat. This may not be avoidable depending on the computer usage. My mom "plays" Second Life (for english lessons) and her battery barely lasted two years - expanding to the point that the trackpad on her Macbook Pro was sticking out. Another is leaving the computer plugged in all the time, which will top the ba…

>Another is leaving the computer plugged in all the time, which will top the battery - and apparently lithium batteries hate that. I thought modern batteries had mechanisms in place to prevent that?

I don't know what brand of computer outerworld uses, but my MacBook doesn't start charging until below 95%. When plugged in for long durations, the battery is not running not.

Re: The De-evolution of My Laptop Battery

#50

Post by mikeevans »

untothebreach wrote: post #32
aeturnum wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had my first macbook's battery replaced. I took it into the apple store for an unrelated problem, the tech noted the awful battery life and asked me how old the laptop was, said, "that's not right...," and grabbed another battery. Nice and easy.

If I remember correctly, with the Macbook Air it will have to be '"that's not right...", and grabbed another Macbook Air, and started migrating my data, etc, etc...'

They recently replaced the battery on my Macbook Air. They didn't replace the whole computer, just the battery. Took about 15-20 minutes.
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