Always Plugged in?

[andy71600]

Is it detrimental to the battery in my t43 if I leave it plugged while not in use? I always plug in my laptop as soon as I am done with it. Is this a bad thing to do?

[snife]

No it won't cause any harm on a T43, once its full it will stop charging. If you check out Power Manager it can stop the battery charging at lower than 100% which can be helpful if you constantly use a small percentage before plugging it back in (i've not tested but the function is linked to the BIOS so I assume this function works when the system is off too)

[christopher_wolf]

Not really; there is a threshold, set by default in the IBM Power Manager, that stops the battery from charging at 95%. LiIon batteries shouldn't suffer from being left in the Thinkpad while you operate off of AC power since there is most likely a trickle charge coming in after it exceeds the threshold. HTH

EDIT: Somebody snuck in a post; I really must spend less time on writing a single post.

[LtTPfan]

It might not damage your battery but by leaving it plugged in for long periods your battery gauge may get out of calibration. IBM recommends "reconditioning" your battery once a month. This is done by deepcycling your battery 1-3 times.

[christopher_wolf]

Generally, the reconditioning schedule is a part of the IBM Power Manager and it tells you when the it deems the battery is in need of a recondition.

[andy71600]

All good to hear. I was a little concerned that it may harm the battery, but I guess not.

Thanks

[christopher_wolf]

Here are some good links if you want to know more about your battery

See; http://batteryuniversity.com/

See; http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Battery

HTH

[ffalcon2]

Not really; there is a threshold, set by default in the IBM Power Manager, that stops the battery from charging at 95%.

My T42 doesn't do this. It just charges up to %100 whenever I plug it in. I know that T42 has a different power manager than T43, but is there any way I can get that behavour?

Can I somehow put the T43 power manager on my T42?

[LtTPfan]

If you want to see what the maker of your Thinkpad says about battery health instead of general stuff, left click on your battery guage>> click Battery Information>> click Battery Health>> click Battery Tips.

[brewt]

My T42 doesn't do this. It just charges up to %100 whenever I plug it in.

The T42 should do this as well - I know my one does. I think the T42 was the first T4x to get it.

[alison]

I have had my T42 for 2 months now and although I think it's great I am surprised at how poor the battery life is going. I use it at full power doing mostly word and internet - I'm getting about 2 hours 15 min. When I first got my laptop I seemed to be getting 4 + hours with the same power settings. I don't have any elaborate programs on at all.
Is this typical? Will the decline stop?

[hiyel]

From my experience leaving in on AC does do bad to your battery unless you don't adjust the treshholds.

I use my t43 on AC 95% of the time. The first two weeks I had it, the treshholds were at 96-100, which is the factory setting. I noticed that the full charge capacity was constantly going down. It went to 48.95 Wh from the design capacity which was 51.91 Wh. That is a rate of 3 Wh per 2 weeks, which means that the battery will be useless in less than 6 months.

I read somewhere that keeping it 100% charged is the cause of this. So I set the treshholds to 80-84, and the full charge capacity didn't even change .01 Wh for a week. Then I moved it up to 86-90, it's been 6 days and it's still at 48.95 Wh. I'll wait for another day or two, and move it to 90-94 and see what happens...

[alison]

How do you configure your battery to only charge to 80%. How many hours do you get with only an 80% charge?

[leegaard]

Click on the battery and choose "battery health"

You can set the thresholds there

[Brave_turtle]

Click on the battery and choose "battery health"

You can set the thresholds there

Sorry but where do you go to click on the battery?

I tried control panel - power option - power meter -


But couldnt find anywhere to set the treshold.

[leegaard]

On the green icon in the right bottom of the screen.

You will have to have "Battery Maximizer" installed as far as I remember

[JHaislet]

I read somewhere that keeping it 100% charged is the cause of this. So I set the treshholds to 80-84, and the full charge capacity didn't even change .01 Wh for a week. Then I moved it up to 86-90, it's been 6 days and it's still at 48.95 Wh. I'll wait for another day or two, and move it to 90-94 and see what happens...

So your never letting your battery charge up to 100%?

Judging by your numbers, you currently have it set to start charging when it goes below 86% and stop charging when it reaches 90%?

[JHaislet]

Click on the battery and choose "battery health"

You can set the thresholds there

Sorry but where do you go to click on the battery?

I tried control panel - power option - power meter -


But couldnt find anywhere to set the treshold.

Your almost there, in Power Manager, click on the Batter Information tab, and then click on the "Battery Maintenance" button; that will pull up the window that allows you to set the charging thresholds.

I seem to remember IBM/Lenovo changed the layout of the power management options when they last updated the software.

[hiyel]

So your never letting your battery charge up to 100%?

Judging by your numbers, you currently have it set to start charging when it goes below 86% and stop charging when it reaches 90%?

Yes, that is correct. And those settings did not cause any deterioration on the full charge capacity, so I moved it up to 90%-95%. I'll try to push it up as much as I can while still keeping the full charge capacity at the same level.