Life of my laptop

is it bad for it to be on 24/7 or how often should it be tured off and for how long? i thought that there was less wear and tear on the mac if it isnt turned on and off constantly, then again its probably not good to be on all the time. so what is recommended??

The ultimate debate...There are two sides as far as the hardware is concerned.
The first one would be the heat issue, no need to boil your computer 365 days a year if you do not have a good reason to. The second one is metal expands and contracts when it heats up and cools down. The thing about that is you will be buying your next laptop before the second one comes into play. On the software side it is a very good idea to at least reboot every now to clean things out and reset things. You can go to any forum and get the same answers, there is not a right answer just opinions and educated guesses. I turn my computers on and off once a day, but that's just my opinion how to take care of my computers.

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Experiences Over Seven Years With Battery Life In Tecra Laptops

Seven years ago I bought a Tecra 780DVD, five years ago a Tecra 8100, and two years ago a Tecra S1. Theyre all still in regular use and Ive now used six lithium ion battery packs. My experience suggests these four guidelines are worth observing:
1. It's best to hibernate and remove the battery if the laptop will be idle for more than 2-3 days.
2. Operating lifetime varies quite a lot between battery specimens even with the same operating conditions.
3. Leaving the charger plugged in with the fully charged light on doesnt seem to do any harm (despite some recommendations).
4. Best not to junk the battery the first time it fails to charge. The trick described below may reset the battery and get more useful life out of it.
Tecras show end of life for the battery by making the battery lamp flash orange or stay off when you try to recharge. Last week when I got back from holiday this happened to the 780 (now a WiFi print server) and it felt like dj vu because all four batteries (three on the 780 and one on the 8100) that Ive previously had fail expired in just the same way they failed to charge after 7-14 days of hibernation with the battery left in. I feel this can hardly be a coincidence.
I still had another old 780 battery and an old 8100 battery that both failed about two years ago, so I did some tests. The two 780 batteries showed 10-11 volts on a voltmeter but when I put them in the laptop and connected the charger the charge light still flashed. However when I plugged in the batteries with the laptop already booted up on mains power only, the lamp stayed orange and after an hour or two went green.
I think this shock treatment may have made the electronics in the battery forget that they were supposed to be dead. Anyway I did this with all three batteries and then ran them to see how long theyd last. Results were:
(1) The 780 battery that failed last week (after 36 months use) can now run the laptop for an hour.
(2) The 8100 battery (with 16 months active service, but 'believed dead' for two years) will now run for 10 minutes or more.
(3) The 780 battery believed dead for two years (after 19 months use) seemed to charge but wouldnt run the laptop at all. Half the battery ended up warm and the other half cold, so now I guess its really dead.
Hoping others will compare notes, Ive summarised below how long my battery packs lasted before they refused to charge any more.
Tecra780DVD:
Original battery: 30 months (Discarded too early. Might have got more if Id tried the reset trick).
First replacement: 19 months (Stored for two years, after which reset didnt work).
Second replacement: 36 months (After reset now runs for an hour).
Tecra 8100:
Original battery: 16 months (Stored for 2 years. After reset now runs for 10 minutes).
First replacement: 41 months and still running well.
Tecra S1:
Original battery: 29 months and still running well.
All are genuine Toshiba and the operating conditions were pretty similar for all. The laptops tend to run 4-8 hours per day with charger plugged in, and maybe half an hour on battery only. Sometimes we forget and the charger stays connected overnight.
Im now wishing Id tried the reset trick on all the batteries as soon as they failed, but at least I seem to have rescued two batteries. Even a run time as brief as 10 min is useful on a laptop thats mostly mains powered. It protects against mains failure and you can keep your main battery in the fridge until you need it for a trip.
David Tong
Leeds, UK.

Hello Johnson
It seems you are very big fan of Toshiba notebooks :)
Many thanks for this long case study and for sharing this informations with us.
I am sure that this info helps many community users.
Our community need more users like you. ;)
Best regards

Re: battery life of equium A200-VO1 laptop

I bought a new Equium VO1 and I want to know the average battery life for this laptop's battery.
I am just able to use it for 1.15 until it stops and I am not sure if this is the case with only my pc or this is what u get from toshiba????
Thanks
Owez...

There are three settings for your battery life extension 1) Balance 2) Power save 3) high performance the lower numbers give you a longer battery life with the same performance just double click on your battery icon bottom right of screen and it should tell you what the power setting are and you can change the settings from thereas well, power saver setting should extend your battery life by about 20mins but that is the limit of the equium A200.

How do I prolongue the battery life of my macbook pro?

I just bought a 13" macbook pro and i was reading about it having a certain amount of cycles and so i dont want to use up my cycles too fast or keep it charged too much and instead end up messing up the battery. i was wondering if anyone can tell me how i can use the battery in a way that will make it last longer. Thank You

About Batteries in Modern Apple Laptops
Apple - Batteries - Notebooks
Extending the Life of Your Laptop Battery
Apple - Batteries
MacBook and MacBook Pro- Mac reduces processor speed when battery is removed while operating from an A-C adaptor
Battery University
Apple - Batteries - iPod
Apple - Batteries - iPhone
Apple - Batteries - iPad
Apple Portables- Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance
Mac notebooks- Determining battery cycle count
How to Calibrate Your Mac, iPhone, or iPad Battery | MacBlend

HP laptop says "no bootable device" for weeks at a time and then fixes itself

Hello,
I am a college student. I have an HP pavillion laptop that I boughtin 2009- I do not currently know the exact product name because the IT center of my school has it. It crashed in 2010 and was found to have come with a faulty hard drive, and the hard drive was replaced. Ever since then, once in a while it will get a blue screen (the same blue screen I got the first time it crashed) and then whenever I try to turn the computer on it says "No Bootable Device." It will give me this error message for days or weeks at a time, and then all of a sudden it will start working again without having lost any information.
I have brought it to the IT center at my school twice. The first time they gave it back and said there was nothing wrong with it. This time, I was very insistent that there was something wrong and explained the problem in detail. I got a call today and they told me that they ran tests on the hard drive, and it's working fine, and they cant do anything else. They also said they could try reformatting it if I bring in the discs that it came with, but my dad told me that means I will lose everything on my hard drive.
I'm hoping there will be a simple solution that I can do whenever I get this error message but I'm guessing there won't be. I apologize in advance because I really don't know much about computers so I may have trouble understanding computer jargon..
Thanks!

Without knowing the product involved it is hard to help. You are correct there is likely no magic bullet if you are getting "no bootable device" other than shutting it down and trying to boot again. A 2009 laptop is now 4 years old and that is about the expected life of a laptop although this one seems to have been snakebit from the start.
Ask the IT Center exactly how they tested the hard drive. I am suspecting you have one of the ill-fated dv6000 or dv9000 series models which have heat related issues and high failure rates, but won't know until you provide the model number.

At what percentage should I to charge my macbook pro and prolong the life of my battery?

I want to prolong the life of my laptop battery. I just got a new macbook pro and want to know the proper way to charge the battery.

The first days: leave it on the charger, until it says 100% for a few days.
Then from time to time use it without the charger connected. Let it loose charge until about 50-60% full, then reconnect the charger. You have to keep the "electrons flowing". In the past they said to "calibrate" the battery, but that just calibrates the electronics, not the battery, and you don't do that anymore.

I had to do a total reboot on my laptop

I had a do a full system restore (to the start of the laptops life) on my laptop & lost everything including all my itunes purchases, will i be able to get these back of itunes & how?

It has always been very basic to always maintain a backup copy of your computer for this very reason.
Certainly you did not do a full system restore without making sure that your backup copy was up to date.
You buy one and only one download of music/vids/movies/tv shows. it is your responsibility to move/copy/backup your content.
If for some reason you have failed to maintain a backup ( not good), then you can transfer itunes purchases from an ipod. File>Transfer Purchases

Benchmarking Battery life of MacBook Pro 17"

Hey guys,
I tried to calculate the battery life of my 3/4 months old 17" book. This is how i conducted my test:
1) caliberated my battery, followed all 6 steps
2) turn off all the programs, including the ones in the task bar.
3) set the sleep timers to "never"
4) set brightness to full
5) turned off screen saver
6) turn on itunes and played on mp3 files.
7) note book speakers with volume set to 75% of the max
8) Didnt run anyother application at all during this time.
Using this setup , my fully charged calliberated battery lasted for 3 hours. Do you think it is good ? I would love to see your benchmarks and experimental setups.
Thanks
Mac OS X (10.4.7)

from appldefects
<<<Short battery life in a laptop is mainly cause by heat rather than charge / discharge patterns.
This information comes from award winning author, Isidor Buchmann of Cadex Electronics and is particularly true when it comes to Li-On batteries used in many of today’s current electronic appliances, including Apple’s MacBook, and MacBook Pro notebook computers.
Isidor is no discharge when it comes to batteries. Buchmann has a background in radio communications and has studied the behavior of rechargeable batteries in practical, everyday applications for two decades. He is also an award winning author of many articles and books on batteries.
If you own a MacBook Pro, or a MacBook you owe it to yourself to hit the books over at The Battery University. According to Buchmann’s school of thought, MacBook and MacBook Pro owners will be in for quite a shock when their batteries fail at an unprecedented rate. Buchmann’s research suggests that if a Li-On battery is stored at 60C for three months, it will lose 60% of its charge level. Startling, to say the least, considering the fact that my MacBook Pro operates at a firey 70-80C under average load. Excessive heat is one of the many problems currently plaguing Apple’s portable product line.
Read the full article at How to prolong lithium-based batteries (BU34)
A cliff notes version for the impatient includes:
Avoid frequent full discharges because this puts additional strain on the battery. Several partial discharges with frequent recharges are better for lithium-ion than one deep one. Recharging a partially charged lithium-ion does not cause harm because there is no memory. (In this respect, lithium-ion differs from nickel-based batteries.) Short battery life in a laptop is mainly cause by heat rather than charge / discharge patterns.
Consider removing the battery from a laptop (as to avoid operational heat) when running on fixed power. (Some laptop manufacturers are concerned about dust and moisture accumulating inside the battery casing.)>>>
hmmm

HP Laptop. Blank screen and caps and num lock lights flashing.

Hi,
I hope you can help me.
My laptop is the HP Pavilion DV6-1216sa, bought new in September 2009. When I turn it on, I get a blank screen, the fan is working and the wifi, volume and mute lights light up. The caps lock and num lock lights flash together, once everyone 3 or 4 seconds. Normally when this happens (it has happened throughout the life of the laptop), I turn it off and turn it back on, and it works again. However this time, the problem persists. I've tried most combinations to get the bios screen up and I've tried getting it to another screen via hdmi and VGA, but no signal received. I have tried everything recommended by the HP support website. I have checked the battery, ram, and hard drive.
Best regards,
Jay

The best cheapest fix is if you can remove the motherboard your self and send it to a refabricator who will check all the chips on the motherboard and reball the bad ones. Cost is about $60-120, closer to the bottom if you can ship them just the board but if necessary they will take the whole laptop and remove the board for you.
eBay auction for repair motherboard only
disassembly included auction
If this is "the Answer" please click "Accept as Solution" to help others find it.

Why never used iPad has 85% battery life left?

Hello everyone,
I've turned on my new iPad for the first time, just after taking it out of the new sealed box. And the first thing that took my attention was that the battery life was 85% left (a little "thing" in the top right corner).
(Prior to that, as the new device, I thought I would need to charge it before I even use it, but I learnt from user guide that I don' t need to do that.)
Anyway, so my worry is- why was there not a 100% battery life left on the never used iPad?
Thank you!

About Batteries in Modern Apple Devices
Apple - Batteries - Notebooks
Extending the Life of Your Laptop Battery
Apple - Batteries
Determining Battery Cycle Count
Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance
MacBook and MacBook Pro- Mac reduces processor speed when battery is removed while operating from an A-C adaptor
Battery University

My dell laptop battery wont charge, HELP

Do anyone know what is wrong. it works when it is plugged but wont charge

Most likely there is something wrong with the battery. If the battery is under warranty, Dell should be able to provide a replacement. If not, it might be time for a new one as batteries typically do not last the life of the laptop.
Regards,
Jacob|Web Planner | Best Buy® Corporate

3000 N100 - contacting Lenovo re laptop problems

My 3000 N100 is a nightmare - 7 months after I bought it, it could no longer be used as the graphics chip was damaged and the screen flickered so much that it was unusable. As the machine was still under the 1 year warranty Lenovo repaired it but the same issue has arisen again, and I understand that the extended warranty as a result of the repair was only 3 months. The cost of this repair means that I am left with an almost worthless laptop after only 18 months, that has already gone through 2 graphic chips (I think this is the problem anyway but I'm a bit of a tecnophobe..).
One of my work colleagues told me that companies have a duty to repair or replace items that go wrong before the end of a 'reasonable' service life under the Sale of Goods Act. So I'm hoping that Lenovo would agree that 18 months is not a reasonable service life for their laptops, particularly when it has malfunctioned twice in that time, and would consider a repair, but how do I contact them? There seems to be no contact address on their website and I also can't find any telephone numbers except for Lenovo. Anyone help??

Take it to an especialized repair laboratory and do that BGA rework (reclaim for warranty over that work). Another option is changing the whole motherboard.
You can't do anything yourself because you don't have knowledge and tools.
Best regards.
IPnaSh
First Spanish Community Guru - Colaborador ad honorem

Average Life of MacBook Battery?

Anyone know what the average life is of the A1185 battery? My MacBook is about 3-4 years old, and I have not replaced the battery, but am now having some problems.
What will happen is that before the battery runs completely out, and I am on battery power, the computer will just turn off and shut down completely. There's no telling when. The most recent time was when the battery indicator still said there was a 85% charge on it. The time before that it got down to 90% before it did the same thing.
Seeing as how my MacBook (which I love) is 3-4 years old, I'm thinking it's time for a new battery. Any other thoughts?

Approximately 500 cycles, more or less. If the battery is not used most of the time then eventually it will stop holding a charge after two or three years.
Apple stipulates that a normally used battery should retain about 80% of full charge capacity up to 300 cycles.
See the following:
About Batteries in Modern Apple Laptops
Apple - Batteries - Notebooks
Extending the Life of Your Laptop Battery
Apple - Batteries
Determining Battery Cycle Count
Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance
MacBook and MacBook Pro- Mac reduces processor speed when battery is removed while operating from an A-C adaptor
Battery University

Powerbook takes it own life

My powerbook keeps making things interesting for me. Anyhue recently a few hrs ago i was running on 30% battery and left my computer for a while about 45 minutes max and when i come back the computer has totally shut down and the only way to start up is to disconnect power, remove battery and press power button for a few seconds i.e do a PMU reset. Now if memory serves me well, the laptop should only force sleep not shutdown on low battery and even after sleep it should stay in that state (sleep with breathing sleep light active) for at least another 45-1Hr not totally shut down completely with no response. RIght? anyone know whats up?

Constantly running the battery down to zero is actually not good for it. Also, you shouldn't need to calibrate it daily. Here's a link to some additional info/tips with regards to lithium based batteries. Below is an excerpt from that page.
Simple Guidelines
Avoid frequent full discharges because this puts additional strain on the battery. Several partial discharges with frequent recharges are better for lithium-ion than one deep one. Recharging a partially charged lithium-ion does not cause harm because there is no memory. (In this respect, lithium-ion differs from nickel-based batteries.) Short battery life in a laptop is mainly cause by heat rather than charge / discharge patterns.
Batteries with fuel gauge (laptops) should be calibrated by applying a deliberate full discharge once every 30 charges. Running the pack down in the equipment does this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate and in some cases cut off the device prematurely.
You can can additional info about your battery under the power listing in System Profiler or check out coconutbattery. The frequent discharging may be producing added issues in your case. Try not running it down to zero for a few days and see if it still cuts out at 45%. You may need to have your PowerBook serviced or the battery replaced if the issue persists.
Jrsy

Should i let the laptop on charge?

Yo,
I just bought a MBP retina 13" 2014.
Can I let the laptop on charge when i'm home even if its fully charged or is going to screw up the battery in the long run ( such as my previous labtop..)?
Thanks you.

There is no problem with leaving the AC charger connected even when the battery is fully charged.
About Batteries in Modern Apple Laptops
Battery University
Apple - Batteries - Notebooks
Apple - Batteries
Extending the Life of Your Laptop Battery
MacBook and MacBook Pro- Mac reduces processor speed when battery is removed while operating from an A-C adaptor
Apple Portables- Calibrating your computer's battery for best performance
Mac notebooks- Determining battery cycle count

Life of my laptop

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