ThinkPad T430s: Optimizing Battery Lifespan (Years)

[ph423]

Greetings to the lenovo community,

I just bought a lenovo ThinkPad T430s 2352-CTO laptop, and before I boot it for the first time, I want to make sure to know the exact proper care to ensure the best optimization of the battery's lifespan (depending on several power consumption user profiles).

I have read through the documentation given with the laptop, as well as the Hardware Maintenance Guide and User Guide, and the following articles http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/IdeaPad-Y-and-U-series-Laptops/Optimizing-battery-run-time-and-battery-l..., http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/T400-T500-and-newer-T-series/How-does-battery-charge-work-ThinkPad-T430s... and http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Welcome-FAQs-Knowledge-Base/How-can-I-increase-battery-life-ThinkPad/ta-....
While the Internet articles do tackle the issue, I believe these are not sufficient.
I would like to have the official information regarding:
1. First charge cycles (what to do for the first charges in order to get the maximum out of your battery)
2. Max/Min Charge % for maximum discharge cycles
3. Calibration cycles and the interval between each of them
4. The possibility of using the laptop while charging with AC adapter (if it can do any damage to the battery)
5. The possibility of letting the laptop connected to power source after the maximal charge setted has been reached.
6. The possibility of storing away the battery and only using AC adapter

Thanks for sharing your knowledge,
Best regards,
ph423

[ph423]

I must thank the understanding moderators for deleting my up posts.
I believe it is legitimate for me to up this thread using such means, as it has not received any answer yet, and it has been four days already, while the average response time is of a few hours, if not a few minutes.
I would greatly appreciate if any technician could provide me with the information I am asking, because I was redirected here from the customer support phone number.
If anything, I believe a good customer support should be answering my query promptly.

Best regards,
ph423

[someotherguy]

My advice is not to overthink this.  Put the battery in the system.  Plug it into AC when it is convenient to do so, and run it on battery when it is not.  This is how the system is designed to be used.  You don't need to do anything special.

[ph423]

Well it would indeed be convenient, but only if you could answer to the questions 4 and 5...

And I have already booted the laptop. However I'd still greatly appreciate any answer to the questions asked in my original post. Especially if you are giving me a solution without considering the points I brought. Thanks.

Best regards,

ph423

[sxtatic]

Well, we don't have a T430s but we do own a T530. And let me tell you our experiences considering battery lifetime span and usage. We bought it in 12/2012. We are mostly using our T530 running on AC (around 60% of the time) and the rest running on battery. When running on AC, we use modified Maximum Performance Scheme (all settings on "full") , and when running on battery Maximum Battery Life scheme (all settings on "lowest"). We would regularly let the battery fully discharge. Battery's Design Capacity is 93.6Wh, and in the first 6 months Full Charge Capacity dropped to 82Wh which seemed a tad too much. Then, we decided to change a few settings under Battery Maintenance tab in LPM. Instead of simply checking "Automatically Optimize For Battery Lifespan", which would now and then undercharge (if that's the correct term) the battery to 97-99 percent instead of 100% (which happened 9 out of 10 times), we decided to set Custom Charge Threshold. We've set "Start Charging When Below" to 60% and "Stop Charging At" to 96%. Since then our Full Charge Capacity hasn't dropped at all and, for the last 2 1/2 months, it stands solidly at 82Wh.

We also own a L430, with a 6-cell battery (instead of 9-cell as in our T530), which was bought in 2/2013. Immediately upon receiving it, we did the same thing (setting "Start Charging When Below" to 60% and "Stop Charging At" to 96%.). And since then, "Battery Design Capacity" stands firmly at 53Wh (IIRC).

We get around 5-5.5 hours out of our L430 when running on battery, and around 4-4.5hrs (5hrs if we turn off Wifi and set LCD brightness to 0) out of out L530. Not too shabby, IMO. But still miles away from advertised what? 7? 8hrs of battery time?

Hope this helps.

Take care.

Cheers.

[wizzardofoz]

I do not work for Lenovo and therefore cannot give you an "official" answer but let me convey my understanding of Li-ion batteries.

Li-ion batteries have a finite cycle count. A cycle is usually defined as discharging\charging 85% of capacity. This does not have to be consecutive, i.e. it could be 85 trips between 99% and 100% or 1 trip from 100 to 15% and back. One of the keys to the lifespan of the battery is reducing the number of cycles. The other major factor is temperature, as Li-ion batteries degrade faster at higher temperatures. So whereever possible ensure proper ventilation of your laptop.

A battery will naturally lose some charge over time even if it is not being used, and when a laptop is at high load it will sometimes use the battery to get extra power (on some laptops). The aggressive charging strategy, which is useful for people who regularly work on battery will keep your battery as close to 100% as possible. This means that you have the maximum battery life available when you unplug. If you do not need this constant fully charged battery then you can increase your battery life by setting the thresholds for starting and stopping charge.

The way battery capacity is calculated is based on the discharge curve of the battery. As it discharges the voltage output drops in a non-linear curve. This curve is battery dependent and may change over time. The purpose of "battery resets" or "calibration" is to remeasure this curve so that you can accurately estimate battery capacity. As you can surmise this uses up cycles of your battery, and if the battery was significantly mis-calibrated then you may see a "drop" in the maximum capacity reported by the power manager. This was not necessarily due to capacity lost by the reset but by an improved estimate as well. If you do not care about accurate time\% remaining statistics there is no reason to perform calibration. Perform it when you think those statistics are not correct anymore.

To your specific questions 

1) there is no special preconditioning required for Li-ion batteries

2) For long life storage of batteries "on the shelf" I generally use 50% charge and cool temperatures and periodically charge them up again (every couple of months). You can set whatever thresholds balance your need for immediate battery capacity vs longevity

3) hopefully addressed above

4) The laptop is designed to charge the battery while running, there should be minimal impact to longevity from this.

5) The laptop will not overcharge the battery

6) I do not know if this is possible or recommended for your laptop.

[ph423]

Thanks for both of your answers, and sorry for the delays.

From your responses, I changed my max/min treshholds and I will use my AC adapter as often as possible.

Worse comes to worse, I'll change the battery when time comes.

Best regards,

ph423

[felixgp]

I have a T530, Windows 8.  I have a regular 6 cell battery with a 9 cell slice battery attached to the back of the main battery.  I use the laptop unplugged fairly often and every time I plug the laptop in, the battery charges to 100%.  I have heard that this reduces the lifetime of the battery.  What should I do to make my laptop battery last the longest (and possibly tell it to stop charging at 98% or so)?

Also, if I let my laptop to charge overnight, does it overcharge and reduce the batteries' efficiency?

P.S.  By "longest", I mean its longest lifespan, NOT longest time in a single charge.