Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Should I unplug my laptop charger at 100%?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–249 of 249 posts

Re: Ask HN: Should I unplug my laptop charger at 100%?

#241

Post by cmavr8 »

gpvos wrote: post #115
bkanber wrote: post #58

Source: I have a master's degree in mechanical engineering in hybrid vehicle powertrains, and a big part of my research was battery technology. I spent some time working with the folks at National Semiconductor learning this, so I have several primary sources. Disclaimer: my knowledge of the field is from ca 2010. 1) Lots of deep discharge cycles do negatively affect battery life. Try not to jump between 0% and 100%…

So what my laptop should do automatically is to stop charging once it hits ~90%, and start charging again when it hits ~40%. And the OS should give me an easy-to-reach option to "charge to 100%" for when I'm about to make a trip. Why hasn't anyone implemented this yet?

You're right. Someone should have done it in each OS. In linux it's just a matter of echo-ing a few numbers to the write "files". I just made a script to do it, see my other comments here if interested.

Re: Ask HN: Should I unplug my laptop charger at 100%?

#242

Post by rndn »

highmastdon wrote: post #236
neilyadig wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mid-2010 MBP upgraded with SSD runs perfectly on 10.10.3

Same here, only boots extremely slow (I have the original HDD but 8gb memory)

You should really upgrade to SSD. Makes a huge difference (easily 5-10X speed-up for many tasks).

Re: Ask HN: Should I unplug my laptop charger at 100%?

#243

Post by cwe »

bkanber wrote: post #58

Source: I have a master's degree in mechanical engineering in hybrid vehicle powertrains, and a big part of my research was battery technology. I spent some time working with the folks at National Semiconductor learning this, so I have several primary sources. Disclaimer: my knowledge of the field is from ca 2010. 1) Lots of deep discharge cycles do negatively affect battery life. Try not to jump between 0% and 100%…

This is exactly the pattern I've fallen into with the Apple Watch. It charges so fast, and my usage hasn't been that extreme. I charge it during showers and my son's bedtime, and I'm good to go.

Re: Ask HN: Should I unplug my laptop charger at 100%?

#244

Post by Datsundere »

DavideNL wrote: post #107
bkanber wrote: post #58

Source: I have a master's degree in mechanical engineering in hybrid vehicle powertrains, and a big part of my research was battery technology. I spent some time working with the folks at National Semiconductor learning this, so I have several primary sources. Disclaimer: my knowledge of the field is from ca 2010. 1) Lots of deep discharge cycles do negatively affect battery life. Try not to jump between 0% and 100%…

That's nice to know. However, i'd rather buy a new battery after 5 years (if my laptop is still fit and the battery is dead), than having to complicate my life and think about when to unplug or charge my laptop multiple times each day for 5 years... My Macbook air from mid 2011 is currently at 100/6700*5629 = 84% battery health. (6700 = design capacity, gathered from "ioreg -l -n AppleSmartBattery -r".

With thinkpad acpi modules you can write scripts to automate this. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Tp_smapi

Re: Ask HN: Should I unplug my laptop charger at 100%?

#245

Post by cmavr8 »

gpvos wrote: post #188
misnome wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Macbooks have also done this for, like, forever, but more with the top few percent than 10%-60%

Yeah, it lets it drop to about 97% before it starts charging again. That doesn't really count, although I guess it's nice.

Yes this is not real battery care-taking. Ubuntu does it by default like that (I guess linux kernel in general). Although the low and high thresholds (97 and 100% resp.) are adjustable.

Re: Ask HN: Should I unplug my laptop charger at 100%?

#246

Post by rndn »

leppr wrote: post #198
JoshGlazebrook wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your machine even operational? My macbook air from 2011 (with Yosemite) is sluggish to the point of being unbearable to use and just collects dust.

If you want to stay on OSX: Always 'Quit' open apps you don't use, never, NEVER have 2 sessions open at the same time, and try using lighter applications when you can (VLC instead of iTunes for music, Skim instead of Preview for PDFs, Preview instead of Photos for images, etc) I have to use a 2012 MBP with Yosemite from time to time and if I follow these rules it is definitely bearable.

I recommend VOX over VLC because it has Soundcloud integration and looks nice.

Re: Ask HN: Should I unplug my laptop charger at 100%?

#247

Post by chx »

eertami wrote: post #195
chx wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Linux and ThinkPads you can use acpi_call to set these tresholds https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Tp_smapi#2nd_Option (the old tp_smapi way ceased to work about four years ago).

tp_smapi still works fine on my T61?

I meant laptops released four years ago.

Re: Ask HN: Should I unplug my laptop charger at 100%?

#248

Post by xuancong84 »

In general, the battery health problem should be handled by the manufacturer, not by user. That's why Lenovo is doing a very good job.

However, if you still insist on doing it by yourself, take a look at my hardware-level solutions at http://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/10441/laptop...

Re: Ask HN: Should I unplug my laptop charger at 100%?

#249

Post by 0942v8653 »

sown wrote: post #193
DavideNL wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nice to know. However, i'd rather buy a new battery after 5 years (if my laptop is still fit and the battery is dead), than having to complicate my life and think about when to unplug or charge my laptop multiple times each day for 5 years... My Macbook air from mid 2011 is currently at 100/6700*5629 = 84% battery health. (6700 = design capacity, gathered from "ioreg -l -n AppleSmartBattery -r".

On ubuntu, you can do something similar with upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT1 | grep capacity | awk '{print $2}' You can see all of your power options with upower -e

On Debian:

    bc -l
Post reply on HN