We all know that there is no way to avoid having your laptop battery performance reduce over time. However with proper care, you can extend the life of a laptop battery. There are many tips out there on how to maximize the life of a laptop battery, some are true and some are just myths. In this article, our San Diego IT support experts will list out a few tips which have been proven to be the most effective ways of keeping a laptop battery in good health.

First, charging and discharging causes a laptop battery’s performance to degrade over time and obviously we can’t avoid doing this. However, what we can do is avoid charging and discharging the battery as much as possible. For example, removing the battery from the laptop whenever you expect to have your laptop plugged in for a few weeks or more. This will help the battery to avoid from being charged for too long since the battery will get to full charge for one cycle then being charged again after being used a bit. This will make the battery run more cycles then it needs to.

How we charge a laptop battery has a great deal to do with its performance and length of life too.  For a Lithium-ion battery which most current laptops have, charging a little at a time will maximize the battery lifetime. It should be charged when there is about 40% capacity left on the battery. Avoid draining a lithium-ion battery completely then recharging it since this causes the battery to lose its ability to hold a charge. However the practice of draining then fully charging a laptop battery works very well for a nickel cadmium (NiCd) battery or a nickel metal hydride (NiMH) battery which are commonly found in older laptops.

Another factor that reduces the performance of a laptop battery is extreme temperatures. An environment that is too hot or too cold can cause a battery to lose its ability to hold a charge; thereby degrading the battery life over time. It is a good idea to try to keep your laptop on a surface where air can circulate and in an environment that is room temperature.

In summary, as a laptop battery gets older, it becomes harder for it to hold a charge. However by following some of the steps we’ve gone over in this article you can always maximize the life of your laptop battery as much as possible.

For more tips and tricks to maximize your technology, reach out to Syndeo Communications, a premier IT consulting company in San Diego. Along with advice for how to streamline and safeguard your technologies, we provide on-site and off-site support so that your needs are always taken care of. Call us today at 760-650-3300 and schedule your complimentary consultation today.