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You might not think that the battery life of your laptop would affect its speed or performance, but in reality, it can.
Your laptop doesn’t have to run slower on battery. Even bad batteries don’t affect your portable performance that easily. They do affect their lifespan though and sometimes its hardware as well. It might get slower if you’re using your computer at a critical level or running out of battery.
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Can your laptop be slow because of the battery?
Yes, your laptop can be slow because of the battery. Some computers intentionally slow down when running on battery power to conserve that power itself. The laptop’s processor or CPU shifts to a slower speed, and processors use less power when they run slower, so the battery should last longer.
It’s sometimes your laptop that is protecting the battery since if it gets damaged, your whole laptop can be in danger.
It can also happen because of the interchangeable graphics system that your computer has. It goes to the graphics that the processor has integrated when it uses the battery, but when it is with the power it uses the Radeon (a graphics processing unit) in order to have better video performance.
You have to take into account that your laptop’s battery will always degrade. Yes, your laptop will lose autonomy.
In some models, the battery is not removable, so you should plug it and unplug it manually. However, if you remove the battery for storage, the percentage rule is the same, the charge always between 80% and 20% so it can last longer.
Moreover, if it’s plugged too long, it will degrade, so I also recommend unplugging it in from time to time to make sure it stays in that charging range.
If you want to avoid your laptop going slow I always recommend not having the battery for a long time without using it. If you have a laptop from which the battery is removed, try to use it at least every 2 weeks.
It is less advisable to carry out this step in case you always have your computer with an integrated battery and connected to the electrical network, but still using it every month would be ideal.
What’s worse is storing a battery with a low charge level for a long time as it can result in a dead battery.
Another reason why laptops go slow is that these batteries are very sensitive to high temperatures. Using your laptop too much leads to battery degradation. This happens more often when you’re playing or running heavy programs and games so it’s better if you remove your battery when you go to play.
This doesn’t happen with low temperatures though, batteries prefer cold before the heat. This is an important point since laptops have everything integrated into the minimum possible space, which makes cooling generally scarce, inevitably heating all the components in contact.
If your laptop is running too slow, you should also check if your laptop battery is bad. You can do this by disconnecting the charger from your laptop and turn it on. If your laptop does not turn on or the battery does not charge, it is an indication that the battery is dead.
If the laptop turns on but has a short duration of time, it is a good sign that the battery is bad or is running low.
You also have to know that your laptop’s slowness can also happen by having little RAM, problems in starting the system, low speed in the internet connection, unnecessary software, old drivers and drivers without an update, problems in the Windows registry, and disk problems.
Does the laptop run slower on battery?
No, a healthy battery shouldn’t affect your laptop performance. However, cheap batteries can have undesired effects like shortening your laptop’s lifespan or speed.
Another thing you should worry about is how the battery can damage the hardware of your laptop. This happens when you notice that the battery discharges quickly or it’s always at a critical level.
The hardware needs to run current from the battery so it’s very likely it overheats since your laptop’s fans won’t work anymore. As I mentioned above, the temperature can be very dangerous for your device.
Power-surge is another risk that can happen if you’re using a dead or cheap battery. This basically means the hardware can suffer a lot of damage when it tries to draw more current than it should.
You just have to be careful when you use your electronic devices beyond the usual time, and, in the case of the laptop, people sometimes even have it connected while they are using it.
Remember that the battery of your laptop cannot be overcharged. This is because if the battery reaches 100% it stops charging and will not recharge until the voltage reaches a certain level. After the battery drains a bit, the charger will recharge the battery to 100% and stop charging.
Other reasons why your laptop can get slow that is not related to battery issues is having too many programs at startup and having a hard disk without free space.
A group of necessary programs, such as drivers, antivirus when Windows starts, But it may also start a lot of programs that you will not need. I always recommend checking if you really have to load Steam, Adobe’s manager, Nero Burning to burn discs.
If the answer is no, you must open the Task Manager in Windows by right-clicking on the Task Bar or search for it in the search bar.
Then you just have to look for the Start tab and start removing the ones you do not need, although be careful because you can remove some necessary driver.
Poor hard disk is up to capacity is so common when having a laptop with just megabytes of free space and full of disks, series, games. Users usually don’t use many of these programs so in general, that does not go anywhere.
Take a moment to examine everything you have downloaded and installed and what you do not use, simply delete it, or uninstall it and free up precious space on the HDD.
If you want to keep some of them, you can save them on an external hard disk or USB of great capacity that will solve your problem and will allow your laptop to breathe a little so you can finally have a higher speed.
Why does my laptop slow down when it’s not charging?
You’ve probably seen that when you disconnect your laptop from a power source, the processing performance drops substantially. You notice that online sites load slowly, music starts slowly, and the entire system appears to be slow, and you can’t play any games at all.
Unfortunately, most new laptops with strong CPUs have this issue. Your battery has a limited capacity that must be utilized wisely, so when the power is turned off, power is extracted from the battery because some settings change automatically.
This suggests that the CPU begins to run at a reduced rate in order to conserve power. The range of the wireless card is not the same. To save energy, the screen’s brightness is reduced.
It is fairly simple to return to full processing speed, but be cautious because power is consumed 25-30% quicker.
Using your device plugged into the power is completely harmless, however, use it only with a good quality battery that you trust.
Think that powerful laptops have about 3 or 4 hours of autonomy with normal use, however, if you use it a lot it can last 30 minutes or 1h before you empty the charger.
To sum up, you would charge the battery in a matter of months if you do so many charge and discharge cycles continuously.
If the performance decreases if you only have the battery, it is normal, it is like this to preserve the battery and it lowers the power by default unless you put the high-performance plan.
Even so, it is likely that it will not reach the same power as connected for a question that the battery is unable to deliver sufficient voltage.
Conclusion
A battery doesn’t affect your laptop performance unless it’s damaged or it’s a very cheap one. However, some devices intentionally slow down when they’re running on battery power. It’s the last resource they use so the hardware can stay safe.