Hey all, i have a dell laptop and one friend told me that using the laptop with the battery insterted and the ac adaptor connected can reduce the battery life...

so i started using the comp connected to ac without the battery and i found out that it doesnt get too hot as it used to with the battery inserted......and the thing is that  some computer companies suggest to never take off the battery fromm the comp....

so what do you guys thing  should i keep the battery inserted the whole time  or should i remove it when im not gonna use it..

Well, I don't really see a reason to keep it in while you are using an external power source to power it up

Keep it out when you use power from the AC.

Put it back in when you need it (Or when you want to charge it)

When my laptop actually worked () i just left the battery in all the time, it didnt make a differnce at all, and when the battery was charged, it wouldnt charge it anymore, so there is no problem with leaving the battery in.

i use my laptop as a desktop most of the time, never take out the battery. seems fine...

If you remove the battery you have to be careful to not unplug the pc, because essentially your using it like a desktop and you may loose/corrupt data if the power cord is yanked and the pc shuts down improperly.

Your friend isn't entirely wrong, but he is wrong.    His advice would apply to nickel-cadmium batteries, but those haven't been used to power laptop computers for about 10 years.  Basically, it is highly recommended to only charge Ni-Cd batteries in full cycles, where you completely drain them before charging.  Failing to do so carries the risk of permanent reduction in capacity.

Lithium metal hydride and lithium ion batteries do not suffer from the same "memory" phenomenon.  They are good for a limited number of charge cycles (usually around 1,000) and that's that.  Any reasonably modern laptop battery is almost certainly one of these two types.

Yet surprisingly, my dad's laptop are losing battery life. For example, my dad doesnt take the battery out, and after 4 years, its down to about 1/2 battery life. And, my dad's laptop is about 4 years old.

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Originally posted by Naga
Yet surprisingly, my dad's laptop are losing battery life. For example, my dad doesnt take the battery out, and after 4 years, its down to about 1/2 battery life. And, my dad's laptop is about 4 years old.

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Keep it in + what Adeptus said + the laptop should know when to charge and when to not charge (or only charge with a very small current/trickle charge) by itself, thus making it beter to leave it in than take it out.

Cold is the killer of batteries, and a mobile phone battery needing replacing after three years is unreasonable.

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Originally posted by markee

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Originally posted by Naga
Yet surprisingly, my dad's laptop are losing battery life. For example, my dad doesnt take the battery out, and after 4 years, its down to about 1/2 battery life. And, my dad's laptop is about 4 years old.

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Batteries aren't going t last forever, especially when used a lot in the likes of a laptop.  Think about a mobile phone, you need to replace the batteries in them after a few years n matter what because they start losing battery life as well, that's just from being used.  All batteries are the same and only have so many cycles of being charged and discharged (through use) so 4 years and only being down to half the amount of time is not bad (assuming your dad's laptop gets used quite often).  Also for storage of batteries, you will find storing in cool places better to keep the charge in a battery, when they heat up they will not keep their charge for as long (it also works when you think a battery is out of charge to put it in a cold place for a little bit and you should get a little bit more out of it).

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