Get the longest life out of your battery

Get the longest life out of your battery

This may not come as a surprise, but batteries don't last forever. We've found that laptop batteries often fail within 1.5-3 years of use, even under the best care. Sometimes, they don't even last a year. Those that never use their laptop on battery are most surprised when they discover the battery is dead. Batteries can only accept so many charges cycles, and when you are plugged in, the battery is often topped off (it drains slowly when not in use). Thus, your battery is using up those cycles even when it isn't used.

There are ways to improve this situation, though. Here are two recommended maintenance tips:
1. Discharge the battery completely once per month. To discharge it completely, the laptop needs to be at its BIOS screen or booted into DOS via a floppy or USB key. You can find out how to get into the BIOS screen from your laptop user manual. It is not a good idea to drain the battery completely while operating in Windows. Either Windows will detect that your battery is just about drained and automatically Hibernate, or if you allow the battery to run down to where it does turn off, you risk corrupting your programs or data because Windows did not shut down properly.

2. If you aren't going to use the battery for a long time, the best way to store a battery is at about 40% charge and at the lowest possible temperature. Temperature plays a big role in reducing a battery's lifespan