laptop battery always on full, 100% when connected to AC

siriusb · 2012-08-28 15:01:29

Hi,

I usually use my laptop on AC with battery removed. Last week I used it from battery, then connected the laptop to AC. If I remember correctly battery started to discharge to 90 something percent after a while, but now it is always on full.

acpi -b
Battery 0: Full, 100%

I have the following packages installed:

local/laptop-mode-tools 1.61-2
local/acpi 1.6-1
local/acpid 2.0.16-3
local/linux 3.5.3-1

My question: is it fine to have the battery always on full? Or was it better when it was charging/discharging automatically?

Thanks

lspci · 2012-08-28 16:24:56

Uhhh.... so are you asking whether your battery should be discharging and then subsequently recharging again and again while you have your comp running on AC?

If yes, then allow me to explain how a laptop, theoretically, should work. (If you really want to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt: check with your laptop's manufacturer.)

The way I visualize this kind of thing is that when you plug the AC adapter up to your laptop there's this little circuit that determines whether the Battery is fully charged or not, whether it does this via heat, resistance, or some other method is beyond my knowledge. I don't that you should be too worried as long as your battery isn't always at 100% while discharging.

Last edited by lspci (2012-08-28 16:33:07)

hellomynameisphil · 2012-08-28 17:38:38

I think maybe he's asking about the health of the battery?

What I have heard, and I don't remember the source, is that the optimum way to store a battery is by discharging it to about 40%, putting it in an airtight, vacuum-sealed bag and storing it in the freezer. If you keep your battery in your laptop and always have it plugged in, you are right that this is sub-optimal in terms of storage, but I don't know exactly how much damage it will do. Google it.

I have also heard that it's good to periodically run your battery all the way down and then charge it all the way back up. I try to do this weekly. Again, Google this to confirm its necessity and recommended frequency.

It's a little difficult to tell exactly what your inquiry is, as I'm not entirely clear about how all the pieces of info you are giving relate to each other. HTH.

siriusb · 2012-08-28 20:34:19

Let me clarify myself. When the battery is in place and the laptop is running from AC, sooner or later you will see that the battery is fully charged. When this fully charged status has been accomplished, charging stops and battery starts discharging (let's say from 100% to 95%) then charging starts again. I think that was the way it worked some weeks ago. My experience in this very moment is that battery is reported to be fully charged. Always. No drop from 100%.

I think the charger electronic prevent the battery from overcharge, but I don't know why is the change in the behavior described above. Was it a bug and now it's fixed or now we have a bug.

Anyway, people contradict each other how to prolong the health of a battery, but I found that usually they say if one usually uses a laptop from AC the best thing is to remove the battery when charged to 50-60% and store in a dry place, and from time to time it's advised to charge/discharge it.

lspci · 2012-08-28 22:03:42

siriusb wrote:

Let me clarify myself. When the battery is in place and the laptop is running from AC, sooner or later you will see that the battery is fully charged. When this fully charged status has been accomplished, charging stops and battery starts discharging (let's say from 100% to 95%) then charging starts again. I think that was the way it worked some weeks ago. My experience in this very moment is that battery is reported to be fully charged. Always. No drop from 100%.
I think the charger electronic prevent the battery from overcharge, but I don't know why is the change in the behavior described above. Was it a bug and now it's fixed or now we have a bug.
Anyway, people contradict each other how to prolong the health of a battery, but I found that usually they say if one usually uses a laptop from AC the best thing is to remove the battery when charged to 50-60% and store in a dry place, and from time to time it's advised to charge/discharge it.

Uh... what make is your laptop, for example I'm using a Compaq laptop so my laptop has a big Compaq at the base of the screen and nice big Q on the back. I wouldn't be surprised if your laptop is a Dell. Google for product reviews for your laptop: So, since my laptop is a Compaq and it's a CQ60-420US
I'd type

CQ60-420us battery charge/discharge behavior

or something like that into the address bar for chromium, and then press enter.

EDIT: The best way to use/store a battery, and you can quote me on this 'cause I took a Electrical engineering class last semester and know what I'm talking about, is to just charge it all the way up and then use it till it's almost out of battery power. If you charge it when it's at half capacity it will eventually do bad stuff to the battery, or something like that. Anyway, it's just healthier for the battery to have the chance to fully discharge per every full recharge. You don't have to let it go all the way to 0%, 'cause your laptop will probably cut off if you do that, so let it get as close to zero as you feel comfortable with.

A good program for keeping an eye on power stuff is wmacpi. It's what I use, since conky isn't reliable on my hardware when it comes to the battery. Install it thusly:

packer -S wmacpi

and run it thusly:

$ wmacpi

------

If you use openbox, like I do, you can add the following line to your ~/.config/openbox/autostart file.

wmacpi &

Here's an image of wmacpi showing a laptop being run off AC power.

wmacpi thumbnail showing a laptop running on AC

Last edited by lspci (2012-08-28 22:11:57)

siriusb · 2012-08-29 08:02:54

Thanks for your reply.
We are talking about a HP ProBook 4530s. I also use openbox but I prefer conky

Well, my original question hasn't been answered by anybody. Sad.

Anyway, I don't agree with you. Do you really think I should run the laptop from battery then charge it in every two hours? Battery would be worn out pretty soon. I mainly use the laptop with adapter, that's why I usually remove the battery.

lspci · 2012-08-29 14:46:58

siriusb wrote:

Thanks for your reply.
We are talking about a HP ProBook 4530s. I also use openbox but I prefer conky
Well, my original question hasn't been answered by anybody. Sad.
Anyway, I don't agree with you. Do you really think I should run the laptop from battery then charge it in every two hours? Battery would be worn out pretty soon. I mainly use the laptop with adapter, that's why I usually remove the battery.

Oh, okay. So you want to know about how to store your battery when it is not in use, am I right?

EDIT: (I thought that you wanted to know whether it was healthy for the battery's behavior to have changed like that. I would say that it isn't. It might just be a kernel error, or something like that 'causing Conky to behave differently, but I don't think that your battery's behavior is really supposed to change unless it's starting to lose capacity .)

Try doing:

acpi -bi

it should show you the current capacity of your battery compared to it's design capacity.

Last edited by lspci (2012-08-29 14:52:16)

siriusb · 2012-08-29 15:15:29

LOL I must be a confusing fellow.

I thought that you wanted to know whether it was healthy for the battery's behavior to have changed like that

That's exactly I wanted to know. But I didn't said anything about conky.

Seems I can't express myself correctly, so I think I should stop the thread here to avoid helpful people getting frustrated.

So everybody, thank you for your help.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-08-28 15:01:29

laptop battery always on full, 100% when connected to AC

#2 2012-08-28 16:24:56

Re: laptop battery always on full, 100% when connected to AC

#3 2012-08-28 17:38:38

Re: laptop battery always on full, 100% when connected to AC

#4 2012-08-28 20:34:19

Re: laptop battery always on full, 100% when connected to AC

#5 2012-08-28 22:03:42

Re: laptop battery always on full, 100% when connected to AC

#6 2012-08-29 08:02:54

Re: laptop battery always on full, 100% when connected to AC

#7 2012-08-29 14:46:58

Re: laptop battery always on full, 100% when connected to AC

#8 2012-08-29 15:15:29

Re: laptop battery always on full, 100% when connected to AC

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