I usually have my laptop plugged into the AC outlet and rarely have it unplugged. Obviously the battery remains in the laptop and it will continuously charge which will lower the battery's life.

When I press "FN-F2" this disables the battery. Does this mean that the battery is not charging?

If I turn the AC power and the battery is disabled using the above methos, does the computer shut down? Or is Function-F2 just keeping the battery from constantly being overcharged?

Good question. Why don't you disable the battery with the notebook plugged in and remove the power connection. Does the computer shut off?

I was thinking about trying that... but before I did, thought someone would know

If you move your cursor over the battery symbol in the system tray it'll tell you if it's charging or not.

At home -- plugged (battery and ac). I use the battery as a form of UPS (uninterrupted power supply), if the electricity goes down, at least I am still going for a few hours yet.

cheers ...

Turmoil I do not know the answer to your question "does this mean". But your battery will not overcharge short of failure ever. It will not undercharge through use short of failure ever.

If you are very concerned about battery life you should remove when plugged into AC. The charging is of little consequence in your scenario heat is a larger factor (and simply having fully charged [more later]) regarding battery longevity. But even as such not to the point I concern myself with.

You want to maximize your battery longevity? Remove with 40% to 50% charge store in cool place ie: fridge/freezer. That is not practical for me and I also think as qhn does use as UPS.

Tips:
You can't over charge the battery has a safety circuit that prevents.
You cannot under charge battery through usage, back to safety circuit. You can however run to it's minimum safe level. And with enough passage of time. The natural dissipation of charge you could fall below safe levels. But that just means don't run down and not charge for a month. Falling below safe levels will damage your battery.

The natural loss of charge I mentioned is why every few days even while on AC only you see battery topping off. This concerns you because limited number of charge cycles. Well let's say charges to 100% 3 days latter starts charging. Goes from 97% to 100%. Your Li-Ion is likely rated at 300-500 full cycles. So leaving plugged in you would lose 1 full cycle every 100 days at the end of the year you have used 3.65 of those 300-500. Not that big of an issue if you ask me.

I said heat is a bigger factor.

Here is a chart from battery U showing the comparison based on heat.



I do not accept the actual numbers in the chart but do accept the trends have validity.

Thanks for the informative post Powerpack!

Curios Turmoil which way do you think you are going to go? Longevity or convenience?

Clearly convenience will be the way to go

As long as the battery isn't being overcharged, or constantly drained/re-charge by being in the laptop while plugged into the AC outlet, I am ok.

Good choice. You should get between 2 and 3 years reasonable battery life. It will reduce over that time. That is a very general statement some do not do much better than a year others seem to last 5+ years. Good luck.

I always keep my battery installed, it's your UPS

I seen some go under a year, others several years..

The nice thing is you can always seem to find them on Ebay for a reasonable price.

My M1710's battery took a shat after 1 year haha

From what I have seen many failures are not the Cells themselves, but rather the charge controller inside each battery.

I have also. And there is a way to reset. I have not read up on as batts were blowing up a few years back and not where I wanted to be. I am not saying it will happen but I just thought things going fine why risk. "K-Tron" knew all about that kind of stuff. You can even rebuild the cells. Not that I would do.

in days past you were able to download a battery reset / conditioner program and it works sometimes.

I find the biggest issue with rebuilding is the case usually gets damaged too much lol.