Is it possible to partially charge battery on dv7t?

[boone532]

I've read that the best way to prolong the life of a notebook battery is to take out the battery and store it at 40% charge. However, I like to keep my battery plugged-in as a backup power source. Is there anyway to make my laptop stop charging the battery at around 40%? That way I can extend the life of my battery while still having protection against a power outage.

System specs:
HP DV7T-2000
Core 2 Duo P7450
4Gb RAM
ATI Radeon 4650
320Gb HD

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Unfortunately, none that i know of. You could purchase a cheap knock-off battery off ebay and use that as your backup power supply.

[Evolution]

These battery prolong "tricks" are neither here nor there in my book because eventually no matter what you do the battery is eventually going to die (not able to hold a charge). So why not use it to the fullest of its capacity while you can, remember batteries are consumable items that are meant to be replaced.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

I beg to differ. Keeping a battery at 100% charge drastically cuts its life time.

Batteries were designed to be used, yes. But that means charge/discharge cycles. I've seen plenty of notebook batteries die within a few months because the notebook was always used on AC power with the battery left connected. On my last laptop (Toshiba Portege 4010), when i got it, it got about 5hrs (i also had a secondary battery instead of the optical drive). When i sold it after 1.5 years of use, the battery life was still at a respectable 3.5 hours.

[Evolution]

I understand what you are saying but the only time I usually try to keep a battery at 40% life is when I am storing it and not using it. I would never want a notebook to only charge a battery to 40% (while inside the notebook).

It is okay to leave a battery in a notebook fully charged to 100% but what you should do atleast once a month or so is run the battery down to say 30-40% and then charge it back up; doing this as well as removing the battery when the notebook is under high stress like gaming or video editing(some notebooks get really hot under stress which is definitely not good for lithium batteries) helps keep the batteries in the notebooks that I use in good shape.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

I agree with you on one thing, limiting charge is nowhere as effective as keeping the battery away from heat sources, including the notebook itself.

Maybe we'll see wireless batteries soon.

[boone532]

Thanks for the responses everyone. After some further research I've determined that people with Lenovo laptops have the capability to enable partial charging, however, I haven't found any solutions for HP notebooks. I'll probably just take out my half-charged battery and stick it in the fridge. Hopefully HP will consider developing finer battery management tools in the future.