The summer season is often associated with vacation. If you’ve planned a longer vacation where you won’t be bringing a laptop with you, or if you’re the kind of person who has more than one laptop, read this article to find out
How do you store your laptop if you won’t be using it for long?
In case you are leaving and plan to leave it at home:
choose a place without direct sunlight
If you leave your laptop exposed to direct sunlight for a long time, it is very likely to overheat, which can cause damage to some of its components.
Make sure the laptop is turned off completely (you selected Shut down, not Sleep)
If you choose the Shut down option, your laptop stops consuming any power and you can leave it without worrying for longer.
On the other hand, if you have selected the Sleep option – your laptop continues to consume battery power. This will cause it to discharge completely, which is not good for the battery.
Leaving your laptop for long without using it can seriously affect the battery. Here we’ve put together the most important information you need to know about it:
How do you store your battery if you won’t be using the laptop for long?
In case you are not going to use your notebook for just a few days or a week, there is no need to take such serious measures. However, if you need to avoid using your laptop for longer, you should:
remove the battery and leave it in a place with a constant temperature between 15 and 20 degrees, away from direct sunlight.
The best temperature for laptop battery storage is 15 °C.
On the other hand, the maximum temperature to which the battery can be exposed is 40 °C., but this is not recommended for a long period of time.
Discharge the battery up to 40%
Whether you’re using your laptop or it’s switched off, your battery drains over time.
There are two types of capacity loss:
- Self-discharge – this is the natural discharge of the battery. These losses are restored once you plug it in to charge.
- Losses that cannot be recovered – these occur due to aging, incorrect operation or incorrect storage.
To help you understand the difference, you need to know the following:
The batteries have a “design capacity”. This is the maximum amount of energy your battery was designed to hold when it was new. These values are measured in milliamp-hours (mAh) or milliwatt-hours (mWh). The design capacity depends on the number and capacity of the cells and how they are connected.
On the other hand, batteries have a maximum capacity. It represents the maximum amount of energy it can hold when it is at 100%. At the beginning of a battery’s life, the design capacity and the maximum capacity, in most cases, have the same value (e.g. 4400mAh). Over time and/or with improper use of the battery, the maximum capacity begins to decrease (e.g. from 4400mAh at 100% charge, drops to 4200mAh at 100% charge, etc.) This affects the amount of time your laptop will last if it is not plugged in.
When using lithium-ion batteries (as most laptops do), the losses that cannot be recovered are greater if you don’t store your battery properly – for example, if you charge it to 100% and don’t use it for a long time. If you leave it at 40% and don’t use your laptop, it will still start to self-discharge, but the losses in its maximum capacity will be much smaller.
This type of battery can be stored for up to 2 years, but should be charged at least 2 or 3 times to 40% during this period.
