Computer battery heat and power use

[SteveInMD]

I happened across something that others might be interested in. I use a laptop that's a few years old on my boat. I've discovered that the laptop runs much much cooler and draws less power with the battery removed. The power supply runs cooler too. I've tested a few other laptops and every one ran just fine without the battery installed.

My laptop battery is probably in fairly poor condition; its internal resistance has gone up - therefore the heat. Since I use the computer while plugged into my boat batteries there is no need to leave it installed.

[sailingdog]

Steve-

The only downside to doing that is if the power has a hiccup—you will lose all your work and have to start the machine from a warm boot. The advantage of having a battery in the machine is that if anything happens to the power, you have, effectively, a built in UPS to give you some time to save your work. If you're using the laptop for navigation purposes, having the battery in is probably a very good idea, since it can take a few minutes to go from a warm boot to exactly where you were in the navigation software and such.