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Good idea leaving a laptop plugged-in?

Aaronautics
Level 7
Does anyone know if it's a good idea to leave a laptop plugged-in even when the battery is already fully charged?

I got myself a decent laptop last month for college (FX553VE) and I was thinking about downloading some games from Steam. I've successfully installed a few and I've noticed that the gameplay is much more fluid whenever the laptop is charging. Also, knowing how slow the internet here in my country is, I knew that downloading anything bigger than 3GB would take quite some time and that this would probably mean that I'd have to leave it plugged-in overnight so that the downloads would go smoothly without the risk of having a low battery disrupt it.

I've had another laptop a couple of years ago which had a battery that wouldn't charge anymore because I left it plugged-in, even after the battery was already at a 100% and I was wondering if the same kind of practice with my new laptop would result in the same problem.

Yes, it seems kind of stupid to even bother asking whether it's a good idea after having already done it before. It's just that I've Googled the question recently, and there's this stuff about how laptop batteries stop charging after reaching a 100% and the laptop is just fed power directly from the charger. I went here to ask you guys because I thought that I could probably get a more solid answer here.

(Also, new guy here. Hi! :D)
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2 REPLIES 2

xeromist
Moderator
The charger doesn't constantly charge it. It will let the charge level drop a bit, then charge it back up and turn off. So it's not going to overcharge your battery and wear it out.
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Korth
Level 14
Your older laptop battery probably wouldn't charge anymore because it was "dead". They usually last only 2-3 years, at most, regardless of whether they're constantly kept a full charge or not.

The laptop isn't constrained by battery power limits when it has external power so - as you've observed - it's able to run "better" with all hardware at full performances. It'll of course run harder and hotter when sustaining peak performance, which can impose a little more strain on the cooling systems. But this really won't kill the laptop prematurely - the battery is almost always the first item to age and die on any (not broken) laptop, but keeping the battery at/near full charge doesn't accelerate battery death.

The real killer of these batteries is letting them deplete "into the red". If kept in that condition (stored) for long periods the chemistry in these batteries permanently degrades. If forced to simultaneously charge and discharge at high rates (like when the battery is at/near no charge and the laptop is plugged in to keep it running) they produce a lot of heat which also degrades their chemistry. If you get in the habit of always charging your battery before it gets seriously depleted, and always letting them charge uninterrupted until they reach full capacity, then you might get a useful battery lifetime of around 5 years or more.
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[/Korth]