Lenovo G470 battery management

[annhenrie]

I am using Mageia2 on a Lenovo G470 that is usually kept plugged in so the battery is always at full charge. It turns out, for battery life and maybe for safety, batteries that are used this way on this machine instead of being repeatedly drained and recharged should to set to charge only up to 50%. Mageia does not have an option for this setting. It has to be done in Win7 and it is not an obvious setting. You need to use the "hidden icons" to find the energy star icon and choose "optimize for battery life" by clicking on the gear at lower right. When you decide to leave the desk and take your G470 with you, you will want to go back into Win7 and change the setting to "optimize for battery runtime." The setting is maintained while in Mageia. I think this is a manufacturer-specific issue which may explain why it can only be done in Win7 and why it can't be found in the control panel.

[marja]

I am using Mageia2 on a Lenovo G470 that is usually kept plugged in so the battery is always at full charge. It turns out, for battery life and maybe for safety, batteries that are used this way on this machine instead of being repeatedly drained and recharged should to set to charge only up to 50%.

I'm puzzled

It is no problem for a Li-ion battery to remain fully charged, they are protected against over-charging. You can check that: when the battery is full and the laptop still plugged in, you can feel the battery doesn't get hot at all.

Are you sure Lenovo instructs you to charge only to 50% when you keep it plugged in?

Doesn't Lenovo instruct you to store the battery while charged for 50%, if you intend to not use it for a long time?
In other words: if you intend to not use the laptop for a long time, or if you intend to remove the battery from it for a long time.

That was the instruction that came with my Lenovo

You might want to read the following explanation:
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/laptop-battery-overcharged.htm

[martinw]

@Marja - you are right that fully charging a Li-ion battery is perfectly safe (unless there is a hardware fault that allows the battery to be over-charged). But the battery life can be extended if you limit the charge level. http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries will tell you more than you ever wanted to know on this subject

@annhenrie - yes, this is a manufacturer specific function. My Samsung notebook has a similar facility (limiting charging to 80%, which is a more useful compromise). It allows this to be turned on and off in the BIOS setup, which saves having to boot Windows - maybe your G470 supports this too?

[marja]

@Marja - you are right that fully charging a Li-ion battery is perfectly safe (unless there is a hardware fault that allows the battery to be over-charged). But the battery life can be extended if you limit the charge level. http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries will tell you more than you ever wanted to know on this subject

@annhenrie - yes, this is a manufacturer specific function. My Samsung notebook has a similar facility (limiting charging to 80%, which is a more useful compromise). It allows this to be turned on and off in the BIOS setup, which saves having to boot Windows - maybe your G470 supports this too?

Another option for Lenovo laptops, where this can be done very easily, is to just remove the battery when it is full enough. I used to do that until someone who works for a large company where only Lenovo laptops are used, told me I could safely stop doing that. martinw's link made me start removing the battery again, though