Comments on: Should I discharge my laptop battery completely?

By: playing a lot of chess

playing a lot of chess — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:36:03 +0000

Very informative response nitro, you get a gold star.

By: nitro2k01

nitro2k01 — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:38:20 +0000

No need to let it discharge completely every time. Li-Ion batteries are not supposed to have those “memory effects”. I even think the Toshiba manual quoted above picked that quote out of their ass, or just never edited the manual when they upgraded the battery type about 10 years ago or so.

ArfArfArf: Draining Li-Ion batteries completely is a bad thing, but that will typically never happen because the battery pack has an over/under charge protection circuit. So when draining the battery, from the computer’s point of view, you’re just at that lower limit.
OT: When that protection circuit fails, the batteries may swell and leak, and in worse cases explode and/or catch fire. Every second year or so you see something about that in the news.

By: playing a lot of chess

playing a lot of chess — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:06:04 +0000

So only once a month or multiple times a month?

By: Russellji

Russellji — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:20:49 +0000

I have just purchased a Toshiba with Lithium Ion battery and the manual suggests:-

“To maximise the life of the battery pack, at least once a month, …allow the battery pack to fully discharge.”

Straight from the horses mouth…

By: playing a lot of chess

playing a lot of chess — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:10:50 +0000

I guess I don’t know that much about batteries… not even sure what kind I have or how I would find out. Nevermind what the differences are!

By: ArfArfArf

ArfArfArf — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:10:40 +0000

I’ve heard exactly the opposite. That draining is good for NiMH batteries, but very bad for Lithium Ion. Not sure about Lithium Hydride.