Useful IT Practice: Detach your Laptop's Battery when running on External Power Supply

Owners of laptop are somehow facing more risks than owners of desktops. Not only laptops are easier to be stolen, they are delicate. A spill of coffee on the keyboard or a falling-off from your lap onto the floor may spell the end of your laptop. As if these issues are not enough, laptop owners also need to be prepared for situations where the ion-lithium battery cells overheated and explode, causing property damage or even physical injuries. Now that's what i called uncool.

Battery-exploding cases are common...If your laptop's battery gets overheated easily, watch out; you might be next!

Fortunately, there are two habits which laptop owners can rely upon to decrease the chances of their battery cells overheating or exploding. The first habit is to get your laptop working on a low-temperature environment, for example, in an air-conditioned room or running the laptop with a high-voltage USB fan. The second habit, is the practice of detaching your laptop's battery cell from your laptop when you are running your laptop on an external power supply or on cable.

Ion lithium battery cells of laptops are detachable from the main body because like all ion lithium powered products, the cell charge of ion lithium will deplete aka lose charge. When an ion-lithium battery no longer could provide long-standing power supply to a laptop, owners will need to contact their laptop manufacturers for a replacement, either through retailers or via direct contact. In other words, the ion lithium battery cell of your laptop WILL expire one day.

While the common perception of users normally are that we only detach the battery when the battery needs replacement, actually, we can take advantage over the battery's detach-ability. And for good reasons too. By detaching the battery while running on external power supply, not only can we preserve the battery's longetivity, we can actually prevent ourselves from harm due to battery cell explosion!


Here's a simple guide to detaching and reattaching a laptop's battery cell:

1. Make sure that the laptop is currently running on an external power supply. Actually, it is better if your laptop is not power on and running when you detach the battery. If you are currently doing something, either save your work and turn off the laptop, or put the laptop in hibernation mode.

2. Slowly and gently flip your laptop around to face the battery compartment.

3. CAREFULLY detach your battery cell from the laptop. Ways of detaching the laptop battery differs based on the laptop's designs. Make sure you have at least a vague idea of how to do it, or you might end up damaging your laptop.

4. Turn your laptop around, open the lid and resume your work. If it's turned off, just boot it.

5. When you decided to run on battery power supply, turn your laptop around and reattach the battery cell back in place BEFORE you remove the cable, or else you end up losing your work or damaging your laptop!

After you removed your battery from your laptop you should have altogether, a bar of battery cell and your laptop. Anything more than that means you must've removed something extra which might be catastrophic!


Take note that although detaching the battery cells does have unique benefits, there are certain risks too. If you are currently at your home, be sure to watch out of approaching thunderstorms or your local cable workers working on power supplies. Both these issues might trigger a cutout of power supplies and completely wipe out your work on the laptop! In that case, i suggest you remain you laptop's battery intact or just don't use your laptop at all. Personally, i only detach my battery when i'm using external power supplies on public areas, such as at my church or at my university, where i am 100% guaranteed of unaffected power supply under normal circumstances.