Yes that is correct - I only discovered the battery level bit having found it on a US Fire Service web page!
You mean having the laptop always plugged in harms the battery? The laptop takes power from the power source when the battery is charged 100%, right?
Now I am tensed. I always use the laptop plugged in and the battery level will always be 100%
My laptop just now has shut down even if battery percentage is 48%. What does this mean?
@capriciousduck. Will it boot in that state or is battery dead after showing 48%?
If dead then charge it up fully. You need to do at least a full charge cycle dead to 100% to calibrate battery meter.
@swarfendor437 is right old NiCd betteries had memory which meant full charge voltage reduced over time unless subjected to a full discharge now and again. Not many PC’s will have NiCd batteries these days but some small domestic appliances do.
My Lenovo (Windows) has an Energy Management app which allows you choice of best battery performance or best battery health. I use the latter setting which maintains charge at 60% on a.c. Same app allows you to perform a battery calibration cycle, then returns to chosen otimisation at the end, but not seen anything similar on Linux (yet).
Once it got shut down, I press the power button and it started booting and then showed 48% battery after fully booting up. I’m confused. Can you please me some steps on what to do now?
You are still on battery (not a.c.) right?
If so see if it runs down below 48%
If it immediately dies again on battery still showing 48% (or near) then meter is showing 0% as 48% i.e. is uncalibrated. You have to connect to a.c. and fully charge the battery.
Ok. Now I am again discharging it. I’ll let you know how it goes this time.
And do you know how can I set that thing like…the charging should stop once it reaches 80% and start charging once it falls below 30%(say)?
As I mentioned above, I have not found a similar battery health app or setting to do that on Zorin yet. I tend to run with a.c. connected, I think that is marginally better running at 100% than the alternative of it running too low. I have always done that on work laptops and not had battery issues. Also see @carmar does same, but is not perfect.
@capriciousduck - see Figure 6 on the link I posted. The best life for a lithium is when kept between 65%-75% SOC. But is operating in a 10% SOC range realistic? As with everything in life, one picks a tradeoff. For example, 50%-100% SOC looks decent on that graph. As zabadabadoo noted, worry more about discharging too low rather than worrying about always keeping at 100%.
If your battery died at 48%, and it is indeed the battery, then that is voltage sag. When batteries get old/abused, they will show voltage unloaded, but the moment you put a load on them, they can’t deliver current (i.e., voltage drops sharply). Basically, it means you don’t want to discharge it too low. I don’t take my laptop anywhere, do I don’t know or care if it has voltage sag. Again, having voltage sag doesn’t mean the battery is useless, just that you don’t know the exact SOC when it will drop voltage.
PS - Voltage sag is almost always shown by batteries being discharged too low. Which is another reason to not worry about the 100% SOC.
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@carmar. From that it looks like it may continue to discharge down below 48%.
Hope @capriciousduck lets us know the bottom figure after which it is confirmed as dead. Could that be 0% with a bit of luck maybe.