Off Topic - life expectancy of a laptop

[Sam Hill]

Do you find that if you move your head from side to side, vertical lines
tilt one way or the other (parallelogram distortion):

No, not at all.

The only "trouble" I had with my latest pair (about 10 years now) was the
manufacturer ground the right eye's varifocal part *backwards*. I could
see really good far away. Naturally, they fixed their screwup
immediately.

My wife does not like them.

 

[Laszlo Lebrun]

I read somewhere that the typical laptop lasts about 5 years.I have a
HP machine that is going to be there before long and am wondering
about a replacement.

A use to purchase former high end professional laptops as leasing
returns from a remanufacturer.
It cost me around 200 to 250€ toget a three-year-old machine that
usually performs perfectly well for another 3 years.
Since these are professional machines, they usually have no quality
issues and perform very reliably.
It's absolutely no problem to install Windows 7 on a three year old
professional notebook, you don't need a bleeding edge for that.
Beside that OSX and Linux run on it as well ;-)

Anyhow, I have got for that price a 2,4 GHZ dual core with 4GByte ram,
a perfect HD screen, an excellent keyboard, a good DVD dual layer
burning drive, beside a lot of interfaces, including the chip card
reader that I need every day, onboard.

I have replaced the HD for a terabyte model and did not even have to
replace the battery.
So for 250€ I have got quality in my hands for a very small budget.

For that price I could maybe get a new low end netbook, with a crappy
video card, probably a weaker CPU and almost no periphery. :-(

 

[Mortimer]

Laptops with NiCad batteries behave differently than similar ones with
NMIH or LiPo batteries. There is quite a difference in self discharging
over time, as well as run times. High end NiCads and NMIH batteries may
have a slower self discharge rate than other.

Any poorly designed charging system can cause premature battery failure,
as can extended periods of sitting on the shelf with or without being
plugged in.

I's been my experience that laptop batteries generally need replacement
one or more times during the life of the laptop. (If you really use the
laptop in battery mode.)

What is the best advice for preserving the capacity of the battery (the
length of time it will power the laptop before needing to be recharged). My
experience with several laptops is that after about 6 months the battery
doesn't last anywhere near as long as the 2-3 hours that it did when the
laptop was new. After about a year the battery is only lasting about half an
hour.

I tend to use my laptop on mains whenever I can, so as to keep the battery
full so it can be used if I unexpectedly need to use it away from a mains
supply.

I tend to use it on mains until the battery indicator shows full, then
unplug it and use it on battery until it's got down to maybe 30 mins life
left, and then plug it back in again and charge it up, cycling it like this.
At one time I kept it permanently on mains while it was booted up, only
unplugging when I shut it down at night, but I found that this seemed to
cause the battery to lose its capacity more quickly.

Removing the battery is not an option whenever I'm on mains because I need
to be able to unplug the laptop from the mains without having to hibernate
it each time. It's especially annoying if the mains lead happens to come out
when there's no battery fitted because the laptop switches off instantly and
has to be booted again from cold.

 

[Roger Mills]

I lost my original post on the group so I am replying out of sequence.

First, thanks to all for the comments. They were very helpful.

Yes the fans run and vary their speed.

After thinking it over, I have decided I will go ahead and price out a
monitor and keyboard and add a SSD while I am at it.

I made a comment about my eyesight and should explain a little
further. At 68 years I definitely need reading glasses and have a
problem with dry eye but what is really being a pain is that as my
eyes get tired I tend to hunch over toward the screen. I do some part
time consulting and spend 2 to 3 hours a day reading on the computer.
I do it all at one time as I also have some farm work to do and after
being hunched over for most of the time my back muscles really get
tight and painful.

A larger screen and wireless keyboard would allow me to lean back and
still work.

I can still use the laptop as long as I do it for a short time so I
want the portability for vacations and security, I never leave home
without it as we live in the "country".

Can I run the desktop with the lid closed and not have to worry about
over heating?

Yes, you should be able to run the laptop with the lid shut, and use
just an external monitor.

However, if you've got the space, why not do as I do - and extend your
desktop onto laptop screen *and* external monitor, each displaying
something different?

Another thought about eye strain. . . Are the 'documents' which you
read on screen in PDF format, or capable of being converted to PDF? If
so, have you considered getting a Kindle, and transferring them to that
to read. That would probably be easier on your eyes.
--
Cheers,
Roger
____________
Please reply to Newsgroup. Whilst email address is valid, it is seldom
checked.

 

[Paul]

What is the best advice for preserving the capacity of the battery (the
length of time it will power the laptop before needing to be recharged). My
experience with several laptops is that after about 6 months the battery
doesn't last anywhere near as long as the 2-3 hours that it did when the
laptop was new. After about a year the battery is only lasting about
half an hour.

I tend to use my laptop on mains whenever I can, so as to keep the
battery full so it can be used if I unexpectedly need to use it away
from a mains supply.

I tend to use it on mains until the battery indicator shows full, then
unplug it and use it on battery until it's got down to maybe 30 mins
life left, and then plug it back in again and charge it up, cycling it
like this. At one time I kept it permanently on mains while it was
booted up, only unplugging when I shut it down at night, but I found
that this seemed to cause the battery to lose its capacity more quickly.

Removing the battery is not an option whenever I'm on mains because I
need to be able to unplug the laptop from the mains without having to
hibernate it each time. It's especially annoying if the mains lead
happens to come out when there's no battery fitted because the laptop
switches off instantly and has to be booted again from cold.

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries

"Battery manufacturers ship batteries with a 40 percent charge. The low
charge state reduces aging-related stress while allowing some
self-discharge during storage."

That's better for longer term storage, but still requires you to
charge the batteries occasionally, before they completely self-discharge.

The battery will wear out, no matter what you do.

It's possible the technology used in cars, is better than what is used
in a laptop. I think they're a little more concerned about meltdowns
for example I mean, who is afraid of a fire this size.

http://www.theinquirer.net/img/9327/Flaming-Dell.jpg?1241332136

This was probably when the cell vented from overpressure. This is
why you do backups for laptops On occasion, this is traceable
to a defect in the materials used inside the battery.

http://www.theinquirer.net/img/9326/One-Dell-of-a-bang.jpg?1241332136

Paul

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I read somewhere that the typical laptop lasts about 5 years.I have a
HP machine that is going to be there before long and am wondering
about a replacement.

That's probably got more to do with just regular upgrade schedules than
any real failures.

I have a laptop that's 2 years older than that, and it's still fine. I
suffered a few failures early on when it was still less than 1 year old,
and those were fixed under warranty, and nothing else has failed since
on it. It's still working, but I've bought a new laptop this year
because I was sick and tired of its slow performance (by modern
standards). Other than that, it still works fine.

In the meantime, over the years, I've replaced one hard drive on that
laptop, but that was basically for a capacity boost. I've also replaced
its original RAM, but again that was because of a capacity boost rather
than failure.

The current machine is a 2.2 gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3 GB of
memory and dual 7200 rpm drives. It has a 17" +- screen. It does what
I need it to do.

Then I'd say you don't need to change it.

I am having some eye trouble and need a bigger screen and was
thinking about buying a monitor and wireless keyboard to use with it
but don't want to invest the money if the laptop is about done for.

If it hasn't exhibited any trouble, then it's not going to now.

What makes a machine give up the ghost. Aside from the drives, which I
have proactively replaced, what could go wrong to make it useless?

I think you're being too panicky here, you don't have to replace things
that are still working fine. However if you have to know, then stuff
that can go wrong would be if the CPU fan were to die, then the
processor and RAM could start overheating. A lot of motherboard
components, like the WiFi chipset or hard drives could also overheat if
the CPU fan were to die, since it's the fan for the whole system, and
not just the CPU.

Yousuf Khan

 

[BillW50]

Per (e-mail address removed):

At a local Micro Age store one of the salesman's spiel includes
the admonition that leaving a laptop plugged in 24-7 cooks the
battery and that the battery sb removed for such use.

Guy sounds earnest.

Would anybody care to comment?

Lithium batteries lifespan drops drastically around 114 degrees F if I
recall correctly. And while many laptops batteries doesn't get this
warm, they often get close. And thus their lifespan goes downhill very
fast. My netbooks batteries on the other hand, stay pretty much at room
temperature and heat isn't a factor for them.

I also tested maybe lithiums in a lab environment. And I found stopping
the charge when each cell reaches 4.10v, seems to have no harmful
effects on them. Although this reduces the battery capacity. And laptop
manufactures rather use bragging rights about how long their laptops can
run off of the battery. So they push them to 4.2v per cell, which about
as far as you safely can charge them. Although they don't last as long.

I have a couple of dozens of laptops here with a couple of dozen
batteries. And I have been buying laptops since '84. And I can charge
them up once a year and throw them in a drawer, and I can make them last
10 to 12 years treating them this way. Sounds great and all, but if you
never use them, what good are they?

I used to use an UPS and just remove the laptop batteries and throw them
in the drawer. Well you still have to replace the UPS batteries every 3
to 6 years anyway. So there isn't a real cost savings if you ask me. So
I started to use some of those sitting in the drawer laptop batteries
instead of using UPS everywhere. And I like this so much better. ;-)

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

I have Samsung laptop that has been plugged in most of the time for
three years. It still works on batteries when needed.

Steve

More or less ditto, except it's a (large, i. e. 12") netbook. I don't
know if it runs as long as it did when new, though.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Laptops with NiCad batteries behave differently than similar ones with
NMIH or LiPo batteries. There is quite a difference in self discharging
over time, as well as run times. High end NiCads and NMIH batteries may
have a slower self discharge rate than other.

Any poorly designed charging system can cause premature battery
failure, as can extended periods of sitting on the shelf with or
without being plugged in.

I's been my experience that laptop batteries generally need replacement
one or more times during the life of the laptop. (If you really use the
laptop in battery mode.)

I think the person giving the talk was talking about genuine cooking, i.
e. applying heat to, the battery, rather than any problems with the
charging circuitry.

 

[TheGunslinger]

<SNIP it all>

Summarizing -

Battery on laptops:

The older laptops use a different type of battery than is available
now.

Memory in the battery was much more prevalent resulting the inability
to actually perform a full charge.

My understanding is this has been mostly corrected in the newer
batteries.

However, I still make it a point to completely discharge my laptop
battery once or more times a month. I just unplug when I go to bed,
and recharge when I am ready to work in the morning.

External monitor:

I mostly use my external monitor when I am playing music or watching a
streaming movie online. Extending the screen is a real plus because I
can continue working while being entertained, or duplicate if I need a
large screen to work from.

Back-ups and protecting data:

External hard drives have gotten so cheap, it's worth the money to buy
one or two, and perform a serious disk image backup of entire drives
every couple weeks or so (at least once a month for me), or more often
if I am working on mission critical projects. Losing a couple hours of
work is not as much a concern as losing a weeks worth.

Glasses:

I prefer to dedicated sets as I mentioned before. One for general
reading, and another for computer or more distant visual acuity .

This thread has really digressed from the original questions, but I
hope I haven't missed anything.

TTYL.

MJR

 

[BillW50]

More or less ditto, except it's a (large, i. e. 12") netbook. I don't
know if it runs as long as it did when new, though.

Most netbooks are low powered computers. They don't sport high powered
CPUs or GPUs. And they generally run pretty cool. Unless some more
powerful laptops which can produce tons of heat. In turn parts of the
laptop can get quite warm. And the laptop battery can also get quite
warm. Not always due to the battery current flow from discharging or
charging, but because the laptop itself gets quite warm. Even if you
remove the battery partly so it isn't even connected, just being in this
heat can shorten the life of the battery by half or more.

 

[choro]

Bifocals are the best compromise. I have 2 pairs of bifocals. One pair
for close up reading and near focusing for the computer screen. The
second pair for near distances and distant viewing.

Best thing you can do is to measure your reading distance with a tape
measure and note down at which distance you do your reading. Probably at
around 15 inches or 38 cm.

My screen is around 30 inches (around 72 cm) from where I sit at the
computer. So the upper half of the bifocal lens is set to give me a
clear view of the computer screen while the lower part of the bifocals
give me a clear view of the keyboard or while reading hard copy such as
printouts or books etc.

But what about the second pair of glasses that I mentioned? You may or
may not need the second pair depending on whether you need glasses for
distance viewing. If you do, then my suggestion is to have the upper
part of the bifocals focus on distant objects and the lower part focus
at near distances. Mine are set for distance viewing and viewing at 30
inches which gives me a clear view of near objects.

Ergo the problem is solved and you don't have to keep tilting your hear
like a lizard any longer.

One note of warning though. What I described above will work wonderfully
until you start using a laptop maybe and then of course the set
distances will not be the same. So you might very well end up needing,
heaven forbid, a 3rd pair of glasses.

Of course this all depends on how bad your eyesight is. In my case I can
make do with just one pair of glasses with the upper bifocal focused at
30 inches (approx 72 cm) and the lower part of the bifocals set at 15
inches (36 cm).

But DO your homework before you have your eyes tested and DO tell the
optometrist exactly at what distances you want the bifocals to focus.

Forget varifocals if you don't fancy having to tilt your hear like a lizard.
--
choro
*****
PS. This is not a direct response to what Bloch wrote but rather a
general advice to everybody needing glasses from someone who bases his
judgment on actual experience.

[....]

 

[choro]

Per (e-mail address removed):

At a local Micro Age store one of the salesman's spiel includes
the admonition that leaving a laptop plugged in 24-7 cooks the
battery and that the battery sb removed for such use.

Guy sounds earnest.

Would anybody care to comment?

Good advice. I never use my laptop with the battery in EXCEPT when I am
using it as a portable. But DO make sure that you keep charging your
battery once every few months. --
choro
*****

 

[choro]

What is the best advice for preserving the capacity of the battery (the
length of time it will power the laptop before needing to be recharged). My
experience with several laptops is that after about 6 months the battery
doesn't last anywhere near as long as the 2-3 hours that it did when the
laptop was new. After about a year the battery is only lasting about
half an hour.

I tend to use my laptop on mains whenever I can, so as to keep the
battery full so it can be used if I unexpectedly need to use it away
from a mains supply.

I tend to use it on mains until the battery indicator shows full, then
unplug it and use it on battery until it's got down to maybe 30 mins
life left, and then plug it back in again and charge it up, cycling it
like this. At one time I kept it permanently on mains while it was
booted up, only unplugging when I shut it down at night, but I found
that this seemed to cause the battery to lose its capacity more quickly.

Removing the battery is not an option whenever I'm on mains because I
need to be able to unplug the laptop from the mains without having to
hibernate it each time. It's especially annoying if the mains lead
happens to come out when there's no battery fitted because the laptop
switches off instantly and has to be booted again from cold.

It is always wise to shut down the laptop before either removing or
inserting the battery. Better safe than sorry.

Batteries of any type have a set number of rechargings before they start
holding less and less juice. And if the battery is left in all the time,
you are obviously going to recharge the battery unnecessarily and even
if the battery doesn't die down, it will gradually hold less and less
juice. If you charge a battery once every month, 500 maximum charges
before the battery starts dieing down, will go 500/12 years, at least
theoretically. You can't possibly have a battery last that long if you
keep the battery in all the time.

'Nuff said, me tinks!

So unless you actually need to have your laptop running on battery
power, keep the battery out but do not forget to charge it at least once
every few months because it can die down also if it runs out of juice
completely. Make a habit of charging the battery once say at the
beginning of every month or every even numbered month.

And with so many things running on batteries, such as laptops, cameras
etc etc it is good practise to keep a chart to note down when your
batteries were last charged. This way you also know which brands of
LR6/AA batteries to throw in the recycle bin. My low capacity Kodak
LR6/AA batteries, for example, hold the charge much better than some
fancy brands with higher mAh ratings.

Oh yes, I do also note down the state of the batteries in my equipment
say after every 2-month period and so know instantly which brands are a
waste of money. And keep off unbranded or unknown brand batteries
because they are a waste of money. They are usually unreliable and cost
more in the long run, to say nothing of their charge holding
characteristics.

 

[choro]

I might just as well add here the *excellent tip* I saw elsewhere on
this thread to *completely discharge* the batteries every so often
before charging them. This applies to laptop as well as camera and other
batteries. One way of completely discharging the computer battery or
indeed a camera's proprietary lithium battery is to let it run a
slideshow that is self-looping.

For LR6/AA batteries there are chargers that can discharge the batteries
before charging them.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Roger Mills:

Yes, you should be able to run the laptop with the lid shut, and use
just an external monitor.

That begs a question: has anybody been able to set up a laptop
so that it will re-boot automagically with lid shut/battery
removed in case of a power failure and subsequent restoration?

I've got a laptop that I'm running headless at a remote location
- with the battery removed.

Only problem is that when power failed and then was restored, I
had to have somebody hit the power switch to get it to boot.

OTOH, once I started running it with the lid open, it
automagically reboots fine under the same circumstances.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per J. P. Gilliver (John):

More or less ditto, except it's a (large, i. e. 12") netbook. I don't
know if it runs as long as it did when new, though.

That would seem tb the issue.

I guess one question is whether the laptop is pulling power from
the battery or direct from the power supply when it is running
plugged in. Batteries being consumables and all that...

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per choro:

I might just as well add here the *excellent tip* I saw elsewhere on
this thread to *completely discharge* the batteries every so often
before charging them. This applies to laptop as well as camera and other
batteries.

I cannot cite, but it seems to me like somewhere I read that
applies to NiCad, but not Li.

Maybe somebody who knows can chime in.

 

[choro]

Per choro:

I cannot cite, but it seems to me like somewhere I read that
applies to NiCad, but not Li.

Maybe somebody who knows can chime in.

The memory effect is supposed to apply to NiCads as you point out but I
*do* believe that it also applies to NiMH and other batteries including
Li-Ion batteries though to a far lesser extent.

Another point, when you get a new appliance it is always advisable to
charge up the battery fully and I mean fully. Leave it on trickle charge
for far longer. And do run the battery until there is hardly any charge
left in it and repeat this process for at least 4 cycles. You give the
battery its best chance by doing this. Never wise to start using the
whatever it is as soon as you get it out of the box. Always charge up
fully for much longer than is necessary to fully charge the battery and
then use your equipment until the battery is exhausted. Repeat this
process at least 4 times.

I have had 2500 mAh LR6/AA batteries that don't last half as long as my
trusted years old 1700 mAh Kodaks. And this I have established for
myself very, very systematically using them in the same camera, charging
them in the same charger etc etc.

But of course, others can chime in. I am always open to new ideas.--
choro
*****

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

I might just as well add here the *excellent tip* I saw elsewhere on
this thread to *completely discharge* the batteries every so often
before charging them. This applies to laptop as well as camera and other
batteries.

I cannot cite, but it seems to me like somewhere I read that
applies to NiCad, but not Li.

Maybe somebody who knows can chime in.[/QUOTE]

Lithium Ion batteries do not suffer from the "memory effect" issue that
plagued NiCad batteries, so do not benefit from complete discharge /
recharge cycles.

As I understand it, the deeper the discharge before being fully
recharged, the fewer recharge cycles you can expect before the battery
drops to below 75% capacity.

Of course, it generally isn't very practical to just discharge 10% then
recharge, but if you could that would give you the most recharge cycles
(but not necessarily the most total battery life). Discharging to 50%
or 25% before recharging is probably the best compromise, especially
since the batteries age and typically don't last beyond 2 to 3 years no
matter how gently you treat them.

Also, avoid overheating the battery if at all possible, as that
significantly reduces their lifespan as well. Rapid discharge and
rapid charging both generate a lot of heat, so it is probably best not
to run the device at full tilt while on the battery. Of course you
don't have much choice in how quickly most devices recharge their
batteries, but keep them cool while they do so if you can.