Draining a laptop's battery before recharging

It is only true for very old laptops using Ni-Cad batteries because these batteries are suffering from a memory side effect. Draining completely a Li-Ion battery will do exactly the contrary : you can kill it very fast, and in all cases you will not prolong but reduce its life faster. The best is to charge it often and to keep it on full charge at home by using the power supply.

Older laptop computers used to run on nickel-cadminum batteries, which experienced the "memory effect" where they lost capacity over time if recharged before they wered drained, but now every laptop uses "lithium-ion", so charging your battery whether it's full or not it doesn't affect the battery lifetime. The only situation in which you many need to intentionnaly deep discharge your battery is if its built-in digital fuel gauge, which tracks the remaining battery power and reports it to your computer, gets out of whack as a result of long-term storage or heavy use. Some computers have built-in calibration tools, but if yours doesn't, charge the battery to full and then run it down to zero by disabling power-saving profiles in the operating system

It is recommended that you should drain the battery completely before your recharge it. It is recommended because if you continue to drain the battery around half, it loses it's capacity to charge fully going forward. That is the reason why it is advisable to fully drain the battery before recharging. Cheers! Ram

I have also heard people say that you should drain your laptop battery before you actually put it in the charger to charge. Well I am glad I did not do that because a friend of mine has the same computer I have (Mac Book). They did that and some how the computer completely reset its self because its battery was drained. So I will never do that. I usually just put it on the charger when it gets a fourth of the way to no power. Have had no problems doing it like that so far.

You don't need to fully drain your laptop's battery before you recharge it. That tip is only applicable for older battery type like nickel-cadmium batteries. New laptops are using lithium-ion battery. Repeatedly draining and recharging a lithium-ion battery can actually shorten it's life span and capacity.

Yes you are right but one things that has to be clarified is, that make sure you plug your laptop into charging as soon as you get the first battery low warning with a small yellow sign on the battery symbol. Do not let it go down to the red sign on the battery symbol or else it will be opposite, the battery life will reduce sharply then. This is what I have heard from all the users. Hope this helps. :)

This is pretty much the same with all rechargeable batteries, unless your owner’s manual for the device tells you otherwise. This is especially true for cell phone and power-tool batteries.

that is what i usually do actually. i usually drain my laptop first before i recharge it again to lengthen the life of my battery. i have read it online that tip.

yup..according to my manual,,hehe, I don't really know, but according to my laptop's manual, you should charged you laptop's battery when it's still ok unless you get a notification saying you need to charge. also, you shouldn't pull your laptop from charging unless it's already full because this could really do a major damage with your battery that you might complain about later on. I'm not an expert on computers and gadgets but if you know the basic about what you have then you'll do just fine. you don't need to be an expert about everything. a little knowledge can go along way.

I am not so sure if it can maintain the lifespan of the batteries of our laptop or our mobile phone or not. For me, I shall try to recharge my mobile phone when the battery is totally out. Sometimes, I do have to recharge my mobile battery even though it is not totally out yet. This is to ensure that I have a full charged battery before I travel. About the battery of my laptop, whenever I am using my laptop, I just connect it to my charger and turn it on. This can let me keep using my laptop for more than the allowed 1 hour if I just use my laptop battery without the charger. For me, to drain the battery will spend me a lot of time and there is not assurance to extend my battery's lifespan. I shall just to maintain a habit to finish all of my battery before I charge it when I use my laptop without connecting to the charger. When I am using my laptop with charger, I shall maintain my battery in full charged during the time I am using my laptop. No matter how, we still have to replace a new battery for our laptop and mobile phone respectively after certain the expected lifespan.

That is what normally did, but my computer doesn't even have a year and I have been getting messages that my batteries life has faded, it charges as normal but the time it used to take while not charging (which as approximately 3 hours) has been down graded and now lasts maybe 1 hour before I have to charge it again. So normally I just leave it plugged in, while I am using unless I am traveling or have no way of charging it.

I never do that. I have only used my laptop on the battery a couple of times. The battery only lasts for about 2 hours anyway. I've used my other laptop on the battery a lot because it will last for about 6 hours with the battery only. But this one, I don't.

i think i also have do the same thing like that... drain my fully battery before rechargiing it,i know it is a wrong action, it will make the age of battery decrease. i have decreased the intensity fro this. i just want to take care my laptop well now. i dont want it break faster, it is really important for me.

Beamer,i am no also knowledgeable in computers but one thing i am sure about. My husband gave me a laptop ,My first ever laptop . because i thought Laptops are just like phone,just like you thought,I had it all drained before i charge it. After two weeks , when my lappy drained,i charged it and open.But to my surprise,my poor lappy didn't open. My hubby tried what he can but to no avail it didn't work.We went to PC shop and have it checked,they changed the battery and the cable and tells us not to have it to drain before we charging it.It cost us 5800 pesos all in all. So i suggest with that , Dont do what i did.Save your 5800.. :-D

Not necessary with modern batteries which are li-ion, in fact it might be detrimental all the best urban

Well older batteries have this so called memory effect and if you charge them without draining, they usually provide lesser power time because of such memory effect. That is why technicians advise that we have to drain them before charging. This also applies to vhf radio batteries and any other rechargeable battery using nicad. But with the advent of technologies, newer models does not need to be discharged before charging. In fact, my laptop battery can be charge anytime and will even stop charging when its full so there is no probability of overcharging.

I always charged my battery while I am working on my laptop. I ever heard that it was not good to drain our battery. To stop from being anxious, you should better charge your battery every time you used it.

Usually I ask about that kind of stuffs with the sales person where I bought the gadget. And yes they're recommend the same way, to drain first before recharging battery. They said it can put the charging process in an optimum way. I just follow the advice then.

Hi,don't do that on your laptop, your laptop might be out of order. It's different from mobile phones. I'm not knowledgeable about computers but I was told by a technician about it.

I've had my laptop for two years now. When I first got it I read the manual and followed directions. One recommendation was to allow the battery to drain occassionally in order to prolong battery life. So every now and then I would use the laptop without the charger. When I read the charger contained lead, it caused me to keep the battery charged at all times. Have you heard of the dangers of lead if consumed! I will not be making contact with the cord if I can help it. By the way I have a Toshiba laptop!