It’s in fact a myth about the Memory Effect of
the Lithium-based batteries. Memory effect can be described as the worry that
if you keep re-charging your battery before the juice goes down to zero, it
will gradually lose capacity. This applies only to the older Nickel-based batteries.
The modern lithium battery can be charged regardless of
its current percentage, given that it has absolutely no negative effect in its
performance.
Having the
battery fully charged and the laptop plugged in is not harmful,
because as soon as the charge level
reaches 100% the battery stops receiving charging energy and this energy is
bypassed directly to the power supply system of the laptop.
¨ Remove the
battery pack from the laptop if
you do not use your laptop for extended period of time (a week or more)
¨ Do not expose
the battery to high heat. Do not leave your battery in your
car in the summer. Hot batteries discharge very quickly.
¨ Plug your
laptop charger adapter into a UPS and not directly into a power outlet or surge
protector.
¨ If you have a nickel-metal hydride
battery, completely drain and recharge the battery once a month to maximize its
capacity to hold a charge.
¨ In a normal usage, if the laptop doesn’t get too hot (CPU and Hard disk
around 40°C to 50°C) the battery should remain in the
laptop socket.
¨ Full battery discharges (until laptop
power shutdown, 0%) should be avoided, because this stresses the battery a lot
and can even damage it.
¨
It’s recommended to perform partial discharges to capacity levels of 20 ̴30%
and frequently charges, instead of performing a full discharging followed by a
full charging
Laptop batteries contain a capacity gauge
that allows us to know the exact amount of energy stored. However, due to the
charging/discharging cycles, this sensor tends to be inaccurate overtime.
A recalibration should be
performed in every 30 discharge cycles, which is nothing more than a full
discharge followed by a full charge.
An inaccurate gauge will report in wrong battery
capacity and this may cause the computer to shutdown unexpectedly.
Discharge
(or charge) cycle consist of using all that
battery charge (100%) but not necessarily all at once. For example, you can use
the laptop for some minutes in a day, using half its capacity then fully charge
it. If you did the same thing in the next day, it would be counted as a
discharge cycle and not two, so it may take several days until a full discharge
cycle is complete.
How to perform a calibration (full discharge)..?
1.
Fully charge the battery to its
maximum capacity (100%).
2.
Let the battery “rest” fully charged
for 2 hours or more in order to cool down for charging process.
3.
Unplug the power cord and set the
computer to hibernate automatically at 5% as described by the image sequence
below. If you cannot select 5%, then you should use the minimum value allowed,
but never below 5%.
4.
Leave the computer discharging,
non-stop, until it hibernates itself. You may use the computer normally within
this period.
5.
When the computer shuts down
completely, let it stay in the hibernate state for 5 hours or even more.
6.
Plug the computer to the A/C power to
perform a full charge non-stop until its maximum capacity (100%). You may use
the computer normally within this period.
