Hello to all,

I own a Lenovo ThinkPad e580 which is rarely used. I charge it once a month. Recently I discovered that I should not charge it to full frequent in order to reduce battery wear. Laptop is 10 months old. I used to fully charge it, work and then charge it back at 10-20% capacity. Furthermore, I stored it with 20% battery capacity for 15 days. Today's readings are 22 charging cycles and 5% wear level. Are these values normal? Is it a way to reduce battery wear (maybe a false reading)? And finally, how can I leave the wear level at this level?

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 wrote:

Hello to all,

 

I own a Lenovo ThinkPad e580 which is rarely used. I charge it once a month. Recently I discovered that I should not charge it to full frequent in order to reduce battery wear. Laptop is 10 months old. I used to fully charge it, work and then charge it back at 10-20% capacity. Furthermore, I stored it with 20% battery capacity for 15 days. Today's readings are 22 charging cycles and 5% wear level. Are these values normal? Is it a way to reduce battery wear (maybe a false reading)? And finally, how can I leave the wear level at this level?

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Personally, I wouldn't worry about 5% wear after 10 months. Keep an eye on it to see if the wear starts to accelerate, but batteries are considered to be consumable items.

Regards.

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 wrote:

Hello to all,

 

I own a Lenovo ThinkPad e580 which is rarely used. I charge it once a month. Recently I discovered that I should not charge it to full frequent in order to reduce battery wear. Laptop is 10 months old. I used to fully charge it, work and then charge it back at 10-20% capacity. Furthermore, I stored it with 20% battery capacity for 15 days. Today's readings are 22 charging cycles and 5% wear level. Are these values normal? Is it a way to reduce battery wear (maybe a false reading)? And finally, how can I leave the wear level at this level?

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Yes, 5% battery wear after 10 months is quite normal. Li-Ion batteries deteriorate over time no matter how much or how little you use them.

If you want to try to extend the life of the battery as much as possible consider setting charging thresholds, 80%/20% if you use the computer mostly on battery power and 65%/60% if you use it primarily on AC mains power. The Lenovo Vantage utility provides a convenient way to set those thresholds.

I changed the thresholds according to this. Howeve, I noticed that the wear level fell!

22 charge cycles in 10 months is amazing! I'm at 60 cycles in the same amount of time. 

I started using the charge threshold utility in Vantage earlier this year. The cycles were at 50 then, so I've added just 10 cycles in the last 5-6 months. I now carry my power bar everywhere, whereas I previously left it at home and recharged from almost 0 to 100... explaining the first 50 cycles.

You've been gentler with your battery than I have, but from what I've read, partial charging between 40-80% should give about 1500 to 3000 cycles before capacity falls to 70%.

https://batteryuniversity.com/index.php/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

The wear level is calculated using estimated capacity. Which is inherently unreliable as it is an estimate only.

Also the capacity calculation is effected by the speed you drain the battery. If you run heavy workloads then system will think you have less battery capacity vs. if your computer is idle.

If you want to keep your battery in good shape, Just set the charge percent as low as possible and always use the computer connected to power when possible.

So, 60-65% percent limits are ok?

I have noticed that with 60-65 charge limits and 24 circles the battery wear level jumped to 8% from 5%, which I think it's not normal. Should I worry? I was thinking that if I leave it to drop to 20% and then charge it I will have one more circle and then the gauge will be reset to correct values.

I also noticed that the gauge reset is missing from new Lenovo's vantage application.