Diagnosing battery behaviour on my Lenovo laptop.

[Bret Busby]

On 26/8/23 14:22, Karl Auer wrote:
> On Sat, 2023-08-26 at 12:16 +1000, Owen Thomas wrote:
>> After some discussion, it appears that this is a feature of some
>> laptop batteries: they are programmed at some point not to charge so
>> their life can be extended
> 
> I can't help with your specific situation, except to note that my
> Lenovo tablet (Android) has a feature where you can tell it to not
> charge above 60%. This is intended for a use case where the tablet is
> more or less permanently connected to power. Allegedly it prolongs
> battery life and reduces power usage and heat production in that
> situation.
> 
> For what it's worth, upower on my Lenovo laptop shows state as
> "charging" and the laptop is at 85% of an 87% capacity.
> 
> I don't understand the "History" outputs from upower.
> 
> Regards, K.
> 

I have two interesting aspects to this.

The first, is that one of my cellphones, a Motorola G6, has a 
functionality where it displays a notification that the phone has been 
connected to power for at least three days, and, so will not accept any 
further charging, until the state of charge of the battery, drops to a 
sufficiently low level. That is not the exact wording of the 
notification that is displayed; the notification is much more concise, 
but, I do not remember the exact wording. The cellphone's functionality 
includes updating to the latest available android version for the 
cellphone model, so, I do not know what version of android, it is 
running (and, I do not know how to find what version of android, it is 
running). Perhaps, a utility within Ubuntu, could provide a similar 
functionality, where, when a battery powered device (whether the device 
is a "laptop" computer, or a "tablet" computer (the differentiations, 
have become blurred) ), has been connected to grid power, and the 
battery state of charge, has been constant for more than a day (or, some 
other configurable period of time), charging of the battery, ceases, and 
the device becomes powered by the battery discharging, until the state 
of charge of the battery, drops to a specified level, at which, charging 
can recommence?

The second, is that one of my computers, an Acer Aspire V3-772G, 
purchased in 2013 (ten years old), had been connected (wrongly - I had 
not realised it was wrong, and, had kept forgetting to rectify it) 
continuously to electricity grid power, for about nine years (I had a 
problem last year, when I could not get it to boot, and, I just, this 
weekend, figured the problem - I stupidly, had not checked the 
connections of all of the cords involved with the power pack, and, one 
was not properly connected), and, upon booting it, have found that, 
after about nine years of continual connection to the electricity grid 
(apart from grid outages), the battery usability level (I use that term, 
because I do not know of a more appropriate term) has dropped to 
(displayed as) 38% (so, I am trying to find a replacement battery, which 
is difficult in Australia (not because the batteries are unavailable, 
but, because of Australian retailers having a policy of applying bad 
business practices). I think that a "laptop" computer battery having 38% 
of usable capacity, ten years after the computer was purchased, is 
pretty good, quite apart from that additionally occurring, after the 
computer had been connected continuously to (highly unstable, 
unreliable, and, unsafe) grid electricity, for about nine years.

So, whilst I realise that the quality of new computers, has 
significantly deteriorated, in the ten years since I purchased that 
computer, I do not know how good, and, how durable, the batteries in new 
computers are, now, or, how good is the battery management in Ubuntu, 
now (the computer had only run Ubuntu, as, when I got the computer, 
Ubuntu was the only non-MS operating system, that could run the 
hardware, and, the operating system with which it came, MS Windows 8, 
was (and, still is, especially, as I forgot the password, over the 
years) unusable). So, I do not have any idea, as to whether a new 
computer, now, would be able to retain battery usability, as well as 
that computer, with continuous (well, as continuous, as the grid 
operates, and, continuity, is not a feature of the electricity grid that 
is the SWIS grid in Western Australia) electricity grid connection.

..
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
(UTC+0800)
..............