I'm wondering what is the best way to use the Vostro 1500 battery?
a. Is it better to fully charge the battery, then run the laptop off
the battery till low, then recharge for next use?
b. Or, is it better to use the laptop with the batter charger
plugged in all the time?
c. After charging the battery and you want to use the laptop in
another room, is it OK to leave the charger plugged into the wall
socket? I ask this because it's sort of a pain to keep unplugging,
replugging etc.
The only thing you don't want to do is leave the laptop plugged in all
the time. Just about every laptop applies a constant trickle charge to
the battery and given enough time this will burn the battery up.
You can drain the battery partially and then charge it back up again.
Periodically draining the battery to the point where it is "low" is a
good idea to keep the "gas gauge" circuit calibrated. Do that once a
month or so.
The charger will be fine if you leave it plugged in and the laptop is
disconnected. You might want to unplug it during bad weather or after
a power outage since the power may not come back on "smoothly" when it
is restored.
William R. Walsh wrote:
>
> Hi!
>
> The only thing you don't want to do is leave the laptop plugged in all
> the time. Just about every laptop applies a constant trickle charge to
> the battery and given enough time this will burn the battery up.
This sounds doubtful to me. The laptops draw a half watt when off but
plugged in, which isn't enough to do anything, and probably accounted
for completely by the LED in the power brick itself.
Mine are plugged in all the time. The only negative effect is in the
Inspiron 6400 it doesn't check the battery condition, apparently, except
on power-up, and so the battery will drain itself through normal disuse
if it's left plugged in for a year. Fixed by unplugging it and plugging it
in again, with wakes up the battery checker and then it charges the battery.
It may not be universally true, but I've handled an awful lot of
laptops over the years and not a one did anything any differently with
regard to trickle charging the battery. Several even mentioned this
very fact in their owner's manuals.
> The laptops draw a half watt when off but plugged in, which isn't
> enough to do anything, and probably accounted for completely
> by the LED in the power brick itself.
My Latitude D800 draws a nearly-constant 8 watts when off but plugged
in with a fully charged battery. Take the battery out, and the power
draw drops down to a watt or two. Disconnect the machine and my meter
is no longer sensitive enough to know for sure.
Since you mentioned that your laptop's battery dies when sitting idle
but plugged in, I wonder if the trickle charging circuit is working?
William R. Walsh wrote:
> Since you mentioned that your laptop's battery dies when sitting idle
> but plugged in, I wonder if the trickle charging circuit is working?
It happened on all the 6400s around the office, so it's a feature.
None of the 9400s in the same situation, or old 1200s or 2200s.
The simplest explanation is that in that model it only checks whether
the battery needs charging when the AC is first applied, and if not, doesn't
check again, even if a year goes by with AC applied. In that time the
battery will self-discharge pretty completely without being checked again.
Vostro 1500 battery opperation 
Linear Mode
