Personal computing discussed
Moderators: renee, mac_h8r1, Nemesis
meerkt wrote:Actual usage of the battery degrades it, sure.
But I do wonder if your specific charging habits matter much.
ludi wrote:meerkt wrote:Actual usage of the battery degrades it, sure.
But I do wonder if your specific charging habits matter much.
Sure they can. Both charging and discharging are electro-chemical processes that cause small amounts of damage to both the storage medium and the electrodes. Intelligent charger circuitry will structure the charge cycle and limit the maximum discharge rate in order to limit the impact, but the battery life gradually shortens as damage accrues.
whm1974 wrote:So at some point I will have to replace the battery, good thing I chose a laptop with a removable one.
Topinio wrote:whm1974 wrote:So at some point I will have to replace the battery, good thing I chose a laptop with a removable one.
Unless you're quite unlucky, the battery will not need replacing. If it does, you're already 5Y and 4 generations old, nearly 5, and the battery would be £90 here so IMO not worth it on a <$200 laptop. Gz, though, that's a nice purchase at that price
Chrispy_ wrote:Screen:
Clean it with a soft cloth wet with water and then wrung out so that it's just damp.
If you have greasy fingerprints, put a single drop of dishsoap in a glass of water and then use a wrung cloth with that.
Keyboard:
Vacuum cleaner with soft brush attachment.
Rest of it:
Don't drop it
Don't clog the intake vents
Don't leave things plugged in unnecessarily in case you trip over the cables or knock it and the thing plugged into it rips the socket out of the mainboard
Battery:
Lithium batteries wear out faster when they're flat. Keep them topped up when possible and if you can, avoid running them all the way down to zero.
whm1974 wrote:Yeah but but I think I've gotten a better deal getting this instead of a new notebook for the same price, which I'm not sure if you can even replace the battery on new laptops at this price range. Quite frankly I'm not sure if I even want to get a brand new notebook at this price range anyway. The ones I've seen are really flimsy and too low spec to be useful for me.
just brew it! wrote:Chrispy_ wrote:Lithium batteries wear out faster when they're flat. Keep them topped up when possible and if you can, avoid running them all the way down to zero.
I've heard conflicting advice about this. Everyone seems to agree (and my experience confirms) that leaving them sit in a discharged state for extended periods of time will definitely wreck them. However, I've also seen a lot of sites claim that they are least stressed when they are at around 40-50%. I'm not obsessive about topping up. E.g. if I know I've still got around 50% charge and only need it to last through my morning commute, I might not bother getting it out of the backpack and charging it the night before; I just wait and plug it in when I get to the office.
defaultluser wrote:Make a backup of your windows install.
Many laptops have proprietary drivers and applications required JUST TO BOOT. I've seen some that won't load a default Windows image without a BSOD. And they usually charge out-the-ass to ship you a working install CD.
The backup will make restoration easy, in the instance where your hard drive fails and you replace it. Or you go with an SSD?
whm1974 wrote:Thanks for the advice, I wasn't aware of this as I was just going to install Manjaro Linux on it and replace the HDD with an SSD later on. This just a really silly silly thing for manufacturers to do, why in hell do they do this?
Redocbew wrote:I remember doing that to my mothers laptop a while ago. It was so clogged the compressed air caused a plume of dust to be expelled from the opposite vent when I used it, then I said "oh look, it's running 20C cooler now."
Topinio wrote:whm1974 wrote:Thanks for the advice, I wasn't aware of this as I was just going to install Manjaro Linux on it and replace the HDD with an SSD later on. This just a really silly silly thing for manufacturers to do, why in hell do they do this?
Could you not do it the other way around, buy the SSD then install Linux on to it fresh? That way, you keep the Windows disk/install nice and safe (also useful if you ever need it serviced, just pop the Windows disk back in). I'd still make a backup of the Windows install before doing this, but I'm a firm believer in the adage that you have one less backup than you think you have.
Topinio wrote:whm1974 wrote:Thanks for the advice, I wasn't aware of this as I was just going to install Manjaro Linux on it and replace the HDD with an SSD later on. This just a really silly silly thing for manufacturers to do, why in hell do they do this?
Could you not do it the other way around, buy the SSD then install Linux on to it fresh? That way, you keep the Windows disk/install nice and safe (also useful if you ever need it serviced, just pop the Windows disk back in). I'd still make a backup of the Windows install before doing this, but I'm a firm believer in the adage that you have one less backup than you think you have.
derFunkenstein wrote:Yeah, 5400RPM hard drives are slower than **** and tank any experience. Definitely replace it. ;D
just brew it! wrote:Stick the HDD in an external enclosure and use it for backups.
xgsound wrote:For backups, clones, or new SSDs and any 2.5 inch SATA device the HDD caddy works at full SATA speed.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005G ... eport09-20 $15
That's even better that usb3. Most new laptops even allow "safe to remove" for the target drive. My 180 GB system disk (SSD to 5400 HDD) takes 22 minutes for a system clone using Aomei or Reflex.
HERETIC wrote:NICE-But where spinning rust is involved USB3 or SATA will be bottlenecked to around 100MBsec............