Mac Charging argument

huh?

Like he said.

brian9271 said:

My stupid stubbornish nerdish classmate keeps on thinking he's the best at everything. Ok, so one day, he's charging his Mac at 99%, then when it reached 100%, he takes out his battery, from his MacBook Pro, and plugs in the charger, now that is stupid right, he claims that it kills the MacBook, which is entirely not true at ALL, do you agree?

(we use Macs at school nowadays)

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If I'm reading it correctly. The OP's classmate, who is someone who always has to be right, removes the battery from his laptop once it's charged to 100% and then proceeds to run the computer off of the power adapter claiming that leaving the battery in "always charghing" will cause damage to the battery, laptop, or both.

In answer, my laptop is almost always plugged in and I haven't noticed a substantial loss in battery life or had any computer damage and my PowerBook is going on 4 years old. It may cause damage in the long term, but just how long are you planning on keeping the computer? I'll probably have mine for another 1-3 years before I can replace it and I doubt I'll have any issues with the battery or computer due to the charging within that time.

Of course I've also heard that the charger does not provide enough juice to power the laptop to it's full potential and thus throttles the processor back when there is no battery present, so if you research and find proof of this you can mock him for using the laptop in a slower configuration.

Whatever charging pattern someone uses, it won't kill the MacBook. If the battery life does get worse, you can simply get a replacement battery.

Also, of more significance, when you run a MacBook (or Pro) with the battery taken out, it will reduce processor speed. So it runs slower, and if the charger is accidentally disconnected then any work will be lost.

I remember reading that with the battery out the processor gets locked in at 1ghz.

It'll work, but he's losing a lot of his processor speed - MBs and MBPs scale the processor speed to a maximum of 1.0 GHz with the battery out.

Of course I've also heard that the charger does not provide enough juice to power the laptop to it's full potential and thus throttles the processor back when there is no battery present, so if you research and find proof of this you can mock him for using the laptop in a slower configuration.

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this theory, does not hold up. If the main power weren't enough to power a lappy with out the battery, then it would be in adequate to both run it while charging the battery at the same time.

As noted, the only harm using straight power without the battery install, is the loss of work in progress.

The bases of my conclusion is this. I have worked with a lappy that was bad, wouldn't hold a charge at all, yet the comp ran just fine on straight power with no drop in performance.

brian9271 said:

I can prove something, finally, thanks guys

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You can also tell him how stupid it is do use it without the battery; after all, the MagSafe power adapters pop out easily. I'd hate to be working on something only to lose it because someone tripped on the cord and killed power to the laptop.

EDIT: and I see the post right above mine says just that. Must've skimmed right over that.

Finalday said:

this theory, does not hold up. If the main power weren't enough to power a lappy with out the battery, then it would be in adequate to both run it while charging the battery at the same time.

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Sure it does. Unless your computer is under 100% load at all times you don't need enough juice to power the laptop at 100% plus charge. If you keep a 100% load on it, the computer will throttle down the processor if the battery gets drained enough to not help keep full 100% running the computer can throttle back to allow charging and power until the battery is charged enough to hit all out again.

I'd argue that about 70% of the time wen computers are plugged in they're doing very little that's taxing the machine even in the slightest and that allows plenty of time to charge the battery for the 30% of the time it needs more juice.

Kind of like how phone companies increase capacity using the down time in normal speech patterns to compress and fit more people on the same lines.