Can I disable my battery to use my laptop as a workstation?

Support
1

I have Manjaro GNOME installed on my laptop (HP ENVY 13 x360)
I would like to use that laptop as my workstation, aka be constantly plugged in, with some dongles, etc.

My obvious concern is about battery life. Can I somehow disable the battery so it doesn’t get used up? Just to be clear, because of my laptop’s construction Taking out the battery would cause permanent damage to certain parts :disappointed:.

Is there a way to do that?

My inxi:

System:    Host: manjaro Kernel: 5.11.2-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.1 Desktop: GNOME 3.38.3 
           tk: GTK 3.24.26 wm: gnome-shell dm: GDM 3.38.2.1 Distro: Manjaro Linux 
Machine:   Type: Convertible System: HP product: HP ENVY x360 Convertible 13-ay0xxx v: Type1ProductConfigId 
           serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 31 serial: <superuser required> 
           Mobo: HP model: 876E v: 12.38 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: Insyde v: F.13 date: 09/09/2020 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT1 charge: 36.5 Wh condition: 47.6/51.0 Wh (93%) volts: 12.0/11.6 model: Hewlett-Packard PABAS0241231 
           type: Li-ion serial: 41167 status: Discharging 
           Device-1: hid-0018:04F3:2AF4.0002-battery model: ELAN2514:00 04F3:2AF4 serial: N/A charge: N/A status: N/A 
CPU:       Info: 8-Core model: AMD Ryzen 7 4700U with Radeon Graphics bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Zen 2 rev: 1 L2 cache: 4 MiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm bogomips: 31958 
           Speed: 1397 MHz min/max: 1400/2000 MHz boost: enabled Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1397 2: 1397 3: 1397 4: 1397 5: 1325 
           6: 1378 7: 1800 8: 1366 
Graphics:  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Renoir vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: amdgpu v: kernel bus ID: 04:00.0 
           chip ID: 1002:1636 class ID: 0300 
           Display: x11 server: X.org 1.20.10 compositor: gnome-shell driver: loaded: amdgpu,ati unloaded: modesetting 
           alternate: fbdev,vesa resolution: <missing: xdpyinfo> 
           OpenGL: renderer: AMD RENOIR (DRM 3.40.0 5.11.2-1-MANJARO LLVM 11.1.0) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.3.4 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 04:00.1 
           chip ID: 1002:1637 class ID: 0403 
           Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Raven/Raven2/FireFlight/Renoir Audio Processor vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
           driver: snd_rn_pci_acp3x v: kernel bus ID: 04:00.5 chip ID: 1022:15e2 class ID: 0480 
           Device-3: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 17h HD Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
           bus ID: 04:00.6 chip ID: 1022:15e3 class ID: 0403 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.11.2-1-MANJARO 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8822CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: rtw_8822ce 
           v: N/A port: 2000 bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:c822 class ID: 0280 
           IF: wlo1 state: up mac: d8:c0:a6:31:4a:c7 
Bluetooth: Device-1: Realtek Bluetooth Radio type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus ID: 3-1:2 chip ID: 0bda:b00c class ID: e001 
           serial: 00e04c000001 
           Message: Required tool hciconfig not installed. Check --recommends 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 476.94 GiB used: 157.47 GiB (33.0%) 
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Western Digital model: PC SN520 SDAPNUW-512G-1006 size: 476.94 GiB speed: 15.8 Gb/s 
           lanes: 2 rotation: SSD serial: 20084C803847 rev: 20120006 temp: 29.9 C scheme: GPT 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 451.82 GiB used: 157.47 GiB (34.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 
           ID-2: /boot/efi size: 299.4 MiB used: 312 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 
Swap:      ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 16.6 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 52.1 C mobo: 20.0 C gpu: amdgpu temp: 51.0 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:      Processes: 347 Uptime: 16m wakeups: 2002 Memory: 15.09 GiB used: 3.56 GiB (23.6%) Init: systemd v: 247 Compilers: 
           gcc: 10.2.0 clang: 11.1.0 Packages: 1637 pacman: 1617 flatpak: 11 snap: 9 Shell: Zsh v: 5.8 
           running in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.3.01
2

Nope.

If you using Power AC/DC then you don’t need to worry about battery self. In modern devices battery is backup power if AC/DC adapter cannot handle MORE power than needed in moment.
Battery is not removable - you can open device, disassembly battery BUT system will be see battery always. Firmware is not ready for NON-EXISTS battery in box.

In the past were devices with removable battery - and there was an option working without it.

Today - not.
You do not need to worry about battery life at all.
Regards

3

But lets say I have my laptop plugged in for a long long time like a few months etc. Wont it basically destroy the battery and make it hold less energy in the future?

4

Battery self in time will be less efficient. You cannot do anything with it.

1 Like
5

But will that happen because of me having the laptop plugged in all the time?

6

i had a laptop on which i could remove the battery and left it in a drawer for few years without taking care of it and when i wanted to use it again it was dead.

right now i have a laptop with an integrated battery and once in a month or more i unplug the power cord and use the battery until it’s almost empty and then recharge it, for what i think would be good practice and maintenance.

what you could do is unplug the power cable for a bit until the battery gets to 95% and then plug it so the battery would not be fully charged which is preferable.
in windows i had an Asus utility where i could choose to charge the battery only half way which they say is better for its longevity.

1 Like
7