by txutxu on 3/11/24, 2:42 PM with 2 comments
I've had Toshiba, Macbooks (Air 2012), HP, Lenovo, MSI...
My usage is a lot of hours every single day, I think that is the root cause.
I use Linux+fluxbox, terminals and the browser, with powertop or TLP tuned. During first year, I even exceed the advertised battery performance, and multiply that of colleagues with the same laptop but heavier systems (gnome...)
But I'm worried I'm missing something, doing something wrong, it's at 2 or 3 years, that the battery reduces drastically the performance, and at 3 or 4 years it starts to shutdown unexpectedly (for example when it says there is a 45% still available, plop!).
One thing that I'm not sure if I do OK, is to try charge once I'm at 10% level... and when I'm on the desk, I always have the charger in.
I try to make full cycle of charge/discharge, full discharge from the BIOS (to avoid the operative system power savings), and different tips from internet... nothing helps, when I reach this state, there is no back. Any magic solution here is welcome.
20 Years back, I remember getting out the battery while working at the desk. But today laptops cannot do that. Also I see laptops announcing 20 hours of duration, battery upgrades, etc, but I suspect, that with same usage I will get the same issue.
Do you know any laptop model, or model+OS combination, that after 3 or 4 years of +12 hours of daily usage, still can be considered a portable computer and doesn't need the charger to work at least 4 hours? What is the best one after such a intense life?
by stephenr on 3/11/24, 2:47 PM
Unless the machine specifically handles this scenario, this can artificially wear the battery. Newer MacBooks handle this better with "intelligent" charging (I couldn't say for sure whether a 2012 MBA would have had this feature), but I don't know about other brands.
But the real answer here is that batteries are essentially consumable parts. They won't last forever, and once it drops below holding ~80% of the original charge, it's worthwhile replacing it.