Battery Questions. Safe to keep plugged in 24/7? Best approaches?

Ranon · 2024-06-19 05:01:21

Hello all,

I just bought a laptop and its my first time running arch on it. I heard that you should not keep it plugged in the whole time because it could do some damage to the battery (or will prevent it from lasting longer)
source.

So the questions stem to power management, I was thinking of creating sorta "if statements" where "if power > 80% disconnect charger" and "if power < 40% connect battery" or something like this.
What would be the best approach to this?

A lot of the documentation on the site regarding power management seems to be more in the displaying than the controlling (from the light reading I did) and I just want to ask about recommendations about this? What solutions have you guys come up with?

Any info would be greatly appreciated.

Currently running...

Framework 16
Arch (i3WM)
AMD CPU
Battery:

 native-path:          BAT1
  vendor:               NVT
  model:                FRANDBA
  serial:               050B
  power supply:         yes
  updated:              Wed 19 Jun 2024 12:47:55 PM AWST (29 seconds ago)
  has history:          yes
  has statistics:       yes
  battery
    present:             yes
    rechargeable:        yes
    state:               discharging
    warning-level:       none
    energy:              85.4032 Wh
    energy-empty:        0 Wh
    energy-full:         88.8552 Wh
    energy-full-design:  85.0007 Wh
    energy-rate:         20.5265 W
    voltage:             17.32 V
    charge-cycles:       13
    time to empty:       4.2 hours
    percentage:          96%
    capacity:            100%
    technology:          lithium-ion
    icon-name:          'battery-full-symbolic'
  History (rate):
    1718772475	20.526	discharging
    1718772445	20.898	discharging
    1718772415	24.025	discharging

Last edited by Ranon (2024-06-19 05:07:25)

mesaprotector · 2024-06-19 07:56:30

You can try to see if this works: https://community.frame.work/t/explorin … ller/12846

That said, I wouldn't worry if you can't get it to work. Laptop battery endurance is kind of voodoo. One place you will see people saying the laptop should be unplugged from time to time, another place you'll see people saying it should stay plugged in. There's no hard evidence either way. I charge my laptop to 100% and have noticed no ill effects - aside from my battery lasting longer when I need to unplug it and take it with me, of course The only definite is not let the battery drain to 0%, which you can do by paying attention to it and having a service turn off the laptop before it gets that low.

Last edited by mesaprotector (2024-06-19 07:58:22)

ewaller · 2024-06-19 14:33:03

Modern battery controllers are pretty smart. In general, they know when to stop charging a battery and won't keep trying to charge it just because there is shore power available. Use external power when it is available. Avoid cycling the battery unnecessarily as there are only a finite number of charge cycles available in the life of a battery.

What you can do to improve battery life, beyond unnecessary cycles, is to limit the maximum charge to about 80%. Getting that last 20% causes significant stress on the battery. Feel free to fully charge it, but only when you are going to need it.

Edit: I posted this before I found this: https://batteryuniversity.com/article/b … -batteries
It is a pretty good article on the topic. It points out that temperature extremes are is a killer too.

Edit 2: I did not explicitly state it, but when I say limit the charge to 80%, I don't mean to do that manually. There are settings for the battery controller to control this. Plasma has the hooks to do this for you, I think Gnome does too. There are 'Files' in /sys/class/power_supply/BAT.... that control this function as well.

Last edited by ewaller (2024-06-19 15:51:21)

kokoko3k · 2024-06-20 04:14:24

Hi ewaller,
did you changed opinion on this subjecy over time?

Maybe I'm wrong, but I remember a post from you from years ago where you stated the 80% limit was useless.

ewaller · 2024-06-20 04:31:19

I don't recall having that opinion, but it is possible. I'll see if I can find such a post. If you can find a link to such a post, that would be great.
Do you remember if we were talking Li-Po / Li-Ion chemistry? Or something else?

kokoko3k · 2024-06-20 06:47:15

If you don't remember it, then It is my memory to be wrong, I think it is something like 5+ years ago

Trilby · 2024-06-20 12:20:02

The suggestion of capping charging at 80% might be mixed with a related idea that some people have proposed that one should actively try to cycle the battery between 20 and 80%: specifically the (bad, I believe) advice is to unplug at 80% and then only plug back in at 20%. I'd not be surprised if ewaller had rejected this suggestion. But that's different from setting the controller to limit charging to 80% and just staying there.

kokoko3k · 2024-06-20 13:44:06

Yeah, it had to be that; makes perfectly sense.

theluga · 2024-06-30 18:20:52

Well, I can only give anecdotal evidence.
I always let my laptop 24/7 connected to the grid. Even when powered off. I only unplug and use the battery when travelling or power outages.

All of my laptops always had good battery life. I usually let them discharge completely and recharge 1 time per year.

Never had a bad battery doing it. My old laptop from 2015 still gives me almost 6h of 1080p YouTube video playtime.

My pre older laptop never failed my battery.

But I see people always unplugging and using the battery and usually they always becomes faulty. Yeah. Just anecdotal.

Edit:
This video explain about this from Lenovo UK & Ireland:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwjs74UjITM

Last edited by theluga (2024-07-11 04:50:44)

Trilby · 2024-06-30 18:23:42

I can see your anecdote and raise you one. I have a lenovo T450 with dual batteries that I've used similarly: almost always plugged in except for occasional mobile use. But that's nearly impossible now as both batteries combined will give me a total of 15-20 minutes of unplugged use now. Basically the only purpose of the batteries at this point is to be a buffer against tripping over the power cord ... I'll have enough time to plug it back in before losing any work.

EDIT: I just realized that I don't believe I've yet replaced the battery on this T450s - so perhaps the fact that it doesn't hold a charge for long isn't so bad ... it's 5 years old and has been in near continuous use for the entire 5 years. In that light, I guess the fact that it can still give me 15-20 minutes could actually be seen as impressive.

Last edited by Trilby (2024-07-02 18:47:58)

Arch Linux

#1 2024-06-19 05:01:21

Battery Questions. Safe to keep plugged in 24/7? Best approaches?

#2 2024-06-19 07:56:30

Re: Battery Questions. Safe to keep plugged in 24/7? Best approaches?

#3 2024-06-19 14:33:03

Re: Battery Questions. Safe to keep plugged in 24/7? Best approaches?

#4 2024-06-20 04:14:24

Re: Battery Questions. Safe to keep plugged in 24/7? Best approaches?

#5 2024-06-20 04:31:19

Re: Battery Questions. Safe to keep plugged in 24/7? Best approaches?

#6 2024-06-20 06:47:15

Re: Battery Questions. Safe to keep plugged in 24/7? Best approaches?

#7 2024-06-20 12:20:02

Re: Battery Questions. Safe to keep plugged in 24/7? Best approaches?

#8 2024-06-20 13:44:06

Re: Battery Questions. Safe to keep plugged in 24/7? Best approaches?

#9 2024-06-30 18:20:52

Re: Battery Questions. Safe to keep plugged in 24/7? Best approaches?

#10 2024-06-30 18:23:42

Re: Battery Questions. Safe to keep plugged in 24/7? Best approaches?

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