Your daily dose of practical, easy to follow tech tips!
Question from Brenda: I just bought my son a new laptop for his birthday. As I was paying for it the cashier told me I need to let the battery charge to 100% before I let my son start using it.
In the past I have always just unboxed my new laptops and plugged them in and started using them immediately, and as far as I know there was never any problem.
Do you think I really need to charge the battery before I give it to him? [Read more…]
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Question from Corrine V.: I have a 5 year old HP laptop that won’t work anymore unless it’s plugged into a wall socket.
The battery charge indicator is stuck on 2% charge and it won’t charge any higher than that.
I thought laptop batteries were supposed to last longer than this.
Do you think I need to buy a new battery or could the charger maybe be bad?
Rick’s answer: [Read more…]
Question from Tim H.: Hello Rick. I have what is surely an easy question to answer.
Is it safe to run a laptop without a battery installed?
I’ve heard conflicting answers and I’d really love to have your opinion on the matter.
Question from Mike H.: Hi Rick. I love your site, and I hope you can answer a question for me.
The battery in my trusty Lenovo G570 laptop has gone bad and I need to replace it.
I really love this laptop now that I’ve taken your advice and put Linux on it.
I’d really like to keep using it if I can, but I don’t want to spend a fortune on a battery for it.
Like many laptop owners, you probably put your machine into sleep mode every time you shut the lid to transport it to a new location.
But if you constantly find yourself having to deal with a low battery, there is a better way. Hibernate your laptop instead!
Sleep mode has its place, and that is when you’re going to be away from the laptop for a short while (i.e. when you’re on lunch break).
Hibernating the machine instead during longer breaks in usage (a day or two, for instance) can make your laptop’s battery charge last longer. [Read more…]