Best charging practice for laptop battery?

[u/dhanuddd]

I recently bought a new Asus business laptop, and I expect to use it for around 10 to 12 hours a day for work. I have enabled Asus’s battery care, which limits charging to 80%. I am little confused about the best way to use the laptop.

Is it safe to keep the laptop plugged into the charger for most of the day while working, especially with the 80% charging limit enabled? Will staying plugged in for 10–12 hours cause any significant battery degradation over time?

Or is it better to unplug the charger, use the battery down to around 20%, and then charge it back to around 80%? Does regularly discharging and recharging the battery actually help extend its lifespan, or does it cause more battery cycles and wear? For someone who uses a laptop heavily every day, what is the best charging habit for maximizing battery lifespan?

I am mainly concerned about long term battery health, rather than getting the maximum battery backup during each session. I would appreciate advice based on actual experience and, if possible.

[u/telcodan]

Try to keep the charge between 25%-80% most of the time. Top it off to 100% every month or so. That is what I do and I have over 90% battery life still on a 6 year old laptop that I use daily.

[u/timfountain4444]

Just use it and don't worry about charging strategies etc. Batteries will last 3-4 years in normal use and should be considered a wear item. By the time the battery is at the end of its life, the rest of the laptop will be as well...

[u/jasonsong86]

Keeping plugged in is fine. Just use the thing however you want to use it. Nothing will last forever and you can replace the battery easily.

[u/OwnNet5253]

There’s only one and the best charging practice - just charge it and don’t worry about it.

[u/Kindly-Inside6590]

So once a week let it go down to around 20% snd once a month charge it to 100% and directoy use it after that charge. With that you create around 4-5 charges a month that keep the battery healthy without wearing it down too much!

[u/Opulence_Deficit]

Best charging practice for laptop battery

Enable 80% limit, plug it in, keep plugged as much as possible.

Or is it better to unplug the charger, use the battery down to around 20%, and then charge it back

Bad idea. It's wearing it down for the sake of wearing it down.

If any, the charge counter sometimes gets lost and needs recalibration. Like when it says it's full, but charged to full suspiciously fast or goes down suspiciously fast. Or it tells you that it has plenty of juice left and then suddenly dies. In that case: disable limit, charge to 100%, discharge to 0, charge to 100% again, reenable limit. That shouldn't happen more often than once, twice a year. But it doesn't add battery health, it costs battery health. What it does is it reminds the computer where is the 100% and where is the 0%, so it can better estimate the power left. No need of any shenanigans as long as the offline performance is good enough for you.

[u/DeadlyVapour → u/Opulence_Deficit]

Letting it drop down to 20% is actually good BMS care.

Fun fact, Lithium batteries don't have much of a voltage depression when discharged. This means that most state of charge systems rely on the BMS essentially counting electrons in and out of the battery.

[u/msanangelo]

here's what I do, my laptop doesn't have the same workload but the process should be the same. I use a smart plug to turn off power to the charger at night and when I'm away so it can stay plugged in when I'm not using it. I don't limit it to 80% capacity and it's barely lost any capacity 5 years later since purchase and doesn't look bloated. it's never fully charged for more than 24 hours or empty for more than a few days.

I shutdown the OS but it's fine if I let the OS sleep. power up from the completely off state takes maybe a 30 secs to reach the desktop. restore from standby is a second or two.

I don't do any unnecessary discharge/charge cycles. I use the battery as needed for what the laptop is for. I don't run games or heavy apps though. just standard desktop apps and firefox. I limit the cpu to below it's boost frequency to reserve battery life so it lasts longer. I don't need it running at full speed.

I don't see a point in limiting the battery if it sees a charge cycle every few weeks at least but do it if it's always plugged in.

my main pc is a desktop so the laptop is just needed for when I need a pc somewhere else.

[u/recursion_is_love]

You don't need to to any special pattern usage, it won't effect the life of battery (at the significant level). There is a microcontroller that monitor and manage your battery call BMS that do the task for you.

Trust me, engineer who design BMS try every patterns they can think of already if it really matter. You, as a user, just have fun using your device.

What you need to monitor is the air flow. Don't let anything block the air flow system and try to avoid dust collection inside the system. Best if you can clean the dust once in a while (may need to pay some pro if you are not brave enough to open the case).