Would leaving laptop charger on kill battery?

[Mucho]

I was wondering if you leave a laptop charger on for an extended period damage the battery?

 

[Melchior]

I doubt it. My 700M requires the laptop to have a battery in at all times in order to operate.

 

[BlueWeasel]

I think it all depends on the type of laptop battery. I've heard that most newer laptops don't have issues with leaving it on AC for extended periods of time.

I've got a Toshiba laptop that I got in 2002 and I still take the battery out if I know I'll be running on AC for a while.

 

[imverygifted]

it doesnt charge once its fully charged- i believe it bypasses the battery when using it with a fully charged battery
i could be wrong

 

[Quasimodo]

Have had a HP 5310 that I kept on power supply for about 6 months. Had the battery pack in the entire time. Next time I took it off the power supply the battery was dead withing matter of minutes and won't hold a charge. When I contacted HP they told me if you are planning on using you laptop continuously to remove the battery from the laptop, I guess power running thru it continuously sets a battery memory of zero. So no charge will hold and no way to cycle it to clear battery memory.
Hence I'm in the market for a new battery (to the tune of $100+)

Q

 

[n0cmonkey]

I've got a powerbook (and an iBook before this), so I follow these instructions: here. I imagine they apply to pretty much all systems using the same type of batteries though.

 

[DruidAllanon]

Most company laptops (mine included) seem to spend most of their lives plugged in to AC while running and locked away in a drawer at night. It seems they are only infrequently run on the battery. Given this is typical usage, it is hard to see that leaving the battery in while on AC, even if that is most of your usage, could be bad for the battery. Obviously, the batteries wear out at some point, but I have know literally multiple hundreds of people using their laptops in this manner and not one suggested they had unusually shortened battery life (my last one lasted two years plus). Also, none of the tech support people I have ever spoken with ever suggested there was a problem with leaving the battery in when running almost exclusively on AC.

I know it is only ancetdotal evidence, so take it for what it is worth.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Quasimodo
Have had a HP 5310 that I kept on power supply for about 6 months. Had the battery pack in the entire time. Next time I took it off the power supply the battery was dead withing matter of minutes and won't hold a charge. When I contacted HP they told me if you are planning on using you laptop continuously to remove the battery from the laptop, I guess power running thru it continuously sets a battery memory of zero. So no charge will hold and no way to cycle it to clear battery memory.
Hence I'm in the market for a new battery (to the tune of $100+)

Q

I'm reading now that the whole battery memory thing was a bit of a myth. Dansdata.com had some writeup on it if I recall; anyway, my Compaq laptop also is a bit funky with the battery. It keeps saying that it's dead - but it runs for well over an hour with the battery meter at 0%. I just set Windows to ignore it. For the record, the laptop is usually run on AC power.
Also, some laptops have a calibration thing built-in - they seem to learn and estimate how dead the battery can be before it really is in fact out of power. Sometimes that calibration data can get skewed.

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

Hi, If the automatic charger circuit in the laptop was perfect it would never overcharge the battery. Don't trust any of them. Some laptop user manuals specifically state that you should remove the battery when it is not in use except to bring it up to full charge. Jim