Clean Power, Healthy Climate for PCs
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Clean Power, Healthy Climate for PCs
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Dust, Heat, Cold, Moisture, Hard physical knocks… these are all bad for Desktops as well as Notebook PCs. As a precaution;
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One of the main attractions of a Notebook is the complete mobility it gives the user. So much so, that you may not need wires for connecting to the Internet (if you have built-in Wi-Fi) and you can work on the Notebook without the need to be plugged into an electric socket. For many users - both corporate as well as home users, these advantages overrule the fact that a similarly-configured Desktop would cost much less than a Notebook.
If you prefer a Notebook over a Desktop, you ought to be interested in the best practices for ensuring that it's battery lasts the full course - a replacement battery costs a pretty packet! Today's Notebooks come with Lithium-Ion Rechargeable Batteries, while older Notebooks came with the Nickel-Cadmium Rechargeable ones. Whatever be the technology behind your Notebook's battery, you should be aware that it is designed for a certain number of charge-discharge cycles - usually about 5,000 cycles. Hence if you charge-discharge your Notebook twice daily, that works out to a little less than 7 years. Sounds good?? Not quite - for, around the second year of the Notebook Battery's life, its capacity to charge diminishes. You would therefore be forced to charge-discharge more than twice daily.
In real life, an entry-level Notebook's battery therefore lasts no more than 3 years, even when it is used very, very carefully. Now, what you need to do, right from Day - 1, is to ensure that you use each charge-discharge cycle to the maximum. In other words, charge the battery to 100%, then switch off the power supply - let the battery drain off as much as possible (while you work, of course!!). Your Notebook will go into Hibernation when the charge in its battery goes down to your pre-set level. When your Notebook goes into hibernation, you must of course plug it back into the mains and let it charge up to 100% again. Repeating this process ensures that you squeeze maximum life from your Notebook's battery. It is absolutely important that you carry out five charge-discharge cycles at least, when your first use a new Notebook battery - either on a brand-new Notebook or an old one.
Naturally, the 'ideal' charge-discharge process cannot always be followed: there will be days when you need to quickly charge and rush off for an important presentation, before your Notebook is 100% charged. That's ok - it won't kill your Notebook! :) Even if you are able to do one charge-discharge cycle every week once you have begun using the new battery, that would be just fine.
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While the Ideal Usage graph (in Dark line) has charged and discharged the Battery 3 times each above, the Non-Ideal Usage graph (in Dark Red line) shows that the Notebook has been charged and discharged 6 times during the same period. Hence, the user adopting the 'Not Ideal' way would only get about half the life that the 'Ideal' user gets from his Notebook battery!
Now, this is of course the ideal way for prolonging your Notebook's Battery life. You would obviously not be able to let it drain off completely or let it hibernate each time it is due for charging - you could be in the midst of a file download, in the midst of important work, you could be going off to a client to make a big presentation, where it would just not do to have to charge your battery...
The recommended practice is therefore to let your Notebook's Battery drain off until it hibernates, at about once a week. On other days, you may begin charging it before it drops down to hibernation levels. |
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The Sine Waveform is shown alongside in Black, while the Square Waveform is shown in Red.
The Black waveform is relished by your PC, while the Red waveform is Slow Poison! |
