On Fri, Jul 30, 2010 at 5:08 PM, Christian Jaeger
<chrjae@gmail.com> wrote:
2010/7/30 Mark <mamarcac@gmail.com>:
> Or do you shutdown when the battery
> reaches, say, 5%?
>
> I just ordered a few laptop battery replacements
I guess you're talking about Lithium ion or Lithium polymer batteries
(as all modern devices are using either of those)? Then you do rather
*not* want to deep discharge them often, or at least not leave them in
this state for a long time. They are said to live longest when about
half full. Unlike NiCd batteries they exhibit no memory effect, so
there is no use for deep discharge except occasionally to let the
electronic fuel gauge recalibrate itself so that the displayed charge
percentage is correct. Aside keeping them half full and keeping them
at cool temperatures, you can do nothing to prevent those batteries
from loosing capacity over time, they age whatever you do.
Thank you Christian. Correct, Li-ion is the discussion here. So is there a way to keep the battery in the laptop, without it charging to 100%? Both machines in this case are Dell's, one Inspiron and one XPS, both 5+ years old.