[kqr]

How uh, does one find out about battery problems? I almost exclusively use laptops, and I tend to leave them plugged in most of the time. I don't want a sudden lithium-ion battery fire. Can I detect ahead of time that things are going bad?

(My current machine is a Thinkpad P52 if it matters, but I also use older Macbooks and newer Thinkpads and older Dell machines this way, although they're plugged in less often these days.)

[mkesper]

1. Improve longevity by charging Li-Ion only up to 85% of marketed capacity (can be configured at least on Thinkpads).

2. Open up the laptop and check if battery is swollen. After about 10 years, it's also a good idea to replace the CMOS battery before leaking.

3. Without opening, sometimes keys/trackpads don't work anymore as expected. This might be due to swollen battery packs (we had several Dells where this happened).

[fainpul]

With old MacBooks, the bottom bulges out and you notice because it doesn't sit on the four rubber feet anymore but on one central point – it wobbles and you can spin it around.