Battery Life

Does leaving my laptop on with the charger lower the maximum battery life? (like any other rechargable battery?) Another question, I have a really old dell laptop who can only retain a maximum of 14% of it's total battery life, even when plugged. It's got in such state that now the serial, wireless, and LAN ports don't even work. Are the ports closed because of the battery, or do you reckon something else?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_ion_b…on_battery_life

There can be a lot of varying opinions on this. Much of it is confusion over the different types of battery technologies that have come around over the years.

It used to be, when most consumer electronic rechargeable batteries were NiCad, they had a memory effect. You have to cycle the power on those (complete discharge before charging to prolong life, never overcharge).

Lead acid batteries, like in your car must always stay charged. Discharging them destroys them.

However, the battery that is in your laptop is a Li-Ion battery. They are much more resilient batteries and don't have memory effects like NiCads did. Plus the laptop is going to have protection circuits to prevent over charging of the battery. But, one thing is true about these batteries. Heat will cause them to deteriorate much faster. When they are installed in the laptop they are going to get warm/hot from the laptop. This will shorten life. It is a good general practice to leave your batteries mostly charged and stored away in your laptop bag for when you really need them. Discharge and charge them periodically (like every 30 days). If the laptop is going to be stationary a long time remove the battery and run off of AC power only.

As far as the older laptop goes, remove the battery and run the laptop only on AC power. All the ports should work fine or you have a different problem with the laptop. You might even have a bad power adapter that is no longer capable of powering the laptop properly, nor charging the battery. Even if the battery was bad, it should not effect the usage of the ports on the computer unless it is running on battery power and the battery is getting ready to die.

Hey thanks for replying. How do you take out the battery? I can just unscrew the lid and take it out? I assumed that the battery was where the A/C power is stored and channeled from.

remember, if you are technically inclined, and have the time, and a soldering iron,

Hack that sucka!

Hey thanks for replying. How do you take out the battery? I can just unscrew the lid and take it out? I assumed that the battery was where the A/C power is stored and channeled from.

Batteries are user serviceable parts. I can't think of any time where there wasn't simply a little lock or clip or slider on the bottom of the laptop that released the battery.

I suggest you visit the manufacturer's website for your laptop and look up any manuals that might be available for that model. Much useful information in operating and maintaining your laptop will probably be there.