battery cycle count?

[zaku]

how does the battery cycle count works? i've check my battery cycle count and it increases by 1 from nowhere. i didn't even fully discharged the battery and charge back again
how to keep the cycle count as low as possible? never unplug from the ac adapter?

[DavidNZ]

Not sure exactly how the count is measured (I think it's been discussed elsewhere here, though), but I wondered why you want to keep the count low. I generally have my battery set to only charge if it goes below 60% and then stops at 80%. Months ago I read somewhere here that it's perhaps not ideal to keep a battery topped up at 100% all the time and leave the AC adaptor in. As such, mine is at 76% right now and hasn't moved much in weeks (started at 73% but have found that it slowly creeps up over time). Batt was first used July 2004 and has 95 cycle counts on it. Design capacity is 45.15 but remaining capacity is 33.95.

[GomJabbar]

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=16031