Can you run a laptop without a battery?

[eeperman]

I will shortly be in the market for a laptop to take on my travels. It will be normally used in my hotel room and not "on-the-go" so I was wondering if, in order to save weight, I could leave the battery at home and just run the laptop off the mains.

[qohelet]

as long as you plug it on ac power, it will work without the battery..

[Thibault]

There's no problems with running on AC power and having the battery out.

You should have a look at the battery guide too. If you're never going to use the battery and always run off AC power it's a good idea to remove the battery and store is somewhere cold to slow down the aging process of the battery.

[Jason]

Running the notebook w/ the battery installed should be safer. As the battery acts as a UPS.

[John Ratsey]

A 6-cell lithium computer battery weighs aroud 300g (10oz. Other sizes are lighter / heavier in proportion. Typically, leaving out the battery may reduce the travel weight by around 10% and you would lose the independence of not having to rely on power from a hole in the wall.

If you are flying, security checks may ask you to switch the computer on and demonstrate that it works (although this hasn't happend to me for a year or three).

John

[firedude328]

just don't accidently pull out your ac adaptor or have someone kick your adaptor off your laptop, or bam, instant shutdown without a battery

[Homer_Jay_Thompson]

Summary:
1. So it is OK to run a laptop without a battery?
2. Is it better to run a laptop without a battery once the battery is charged and the laptop is plugged in?
3. If I rarely use the laptop without plugging it in, will this hurt the laptop battery?

Thanks

[Dirxess]

To answer your first question: Yes, it is ok to run a laptop without its battery. The laptop may be more vulnerable to peaks in your power supply but I think this should not worry you. The weight you save when not taking the laptop with you is so little you will not even notice the difference.

2 yes, a laptop battery has a number of cycles (one charge and one drain is a cycle). If you do not need the battery for a few days it is better for the battery to leave it out of the laptop because you will use less cycles. Edit: It is not completely true what I said here, read explanation of coriolis under this post

3 You mean when you almost only use the battery, will the battery quality go down? Yes, when a battery has "used up" its maximum number of cycles, the quality of the battery will go down very quickly.

I hope I helped you

[coriolis]

1. So it is OK to run a laptop without a battery?

It's fine, as mentioned, the battery is like an UPS.

2. Is it better to run a laptop without a battery once the battery is charged and the laptop is plugged in?

Makes no real difference, as it'll stop cycling once it reaches capacity. As mentioned above, it acts like an UPS when not in use.

3. If I rarely use the laptop without plugging it in, will this hurt the laptop battery?

You mean if you are always using the battery? If so, obviously so, it won't hurt the battery, it'll just slowly decay(like all batteries).

[exzapel]

I will shortly be in the market for a laptop to take on my travels. It will be normally used in my hotel room and not "on-the-go" so I was wondering if, in order to save weight, I could leave the battery at home and just run the laptop off the mains.

Basically after reading the posts and the laptop battery FAQ, I'd believe that it wouldn't make enough difference in weight for you doing this to make a difference, and that it'd be a bit better to take the battery with you, but if you REALLY think it's still better to leave it, then there wouldn't be much of a problem in doing so.