So, you’ve got a brand-new gaming PC! Could be an Acer, could be a Dragon Center, it could have glowing lights on the keyboard or the screen has a touch function. Plenty of gaming laptops out there, but this one is yours, and you love it.
And, more than that, you are a gamer. You want to play online, I mean, that’s the entire reason why you bought a gaming PC in the first place.
Well, you could have also bought it because you want a high-end PC, be it for animating, drawing, video editing, or other such creative endeavors. Or maybe your old one was malfunctioning, or you just wanted a nice new one for whatever reason.
But, for gamers, a concern arises. You have a gaming PC, but when your game, your battery drains, and fast. You have about maybe two hours’ worth of battery, and when you play a video game, like Apex Legends, that drains even faster.
Should Your Laptop Battery be Removed When Gaming?
In general, keeping the charger won’t hurt your PC, so long as it’s a gaming PC. See, a gaming PC is designed to keep working for long hours and was built with the idea of constantly being charged in mind.
Of course, you could mean removing the battery itself from the PC, in which case, the answer is: “What are you doing? That’s a bad idea!”
See, the battery is the reason the PC even works. Removing that is like ripping out the heart of a human body.
Removing that while gaming is like removing the heart while in the middle of a workout. It ends poorly for everyone involved and leaves a mess.
The reason why this is a bad idea is that:
A) It’s a process, and it is not something you can just do like snapping your fingers. It is…possible if you do it while playing a single-player game, but in multiplayer, not advised.
B) You can just keep the computer charged with the battery installed if you plug in the charging cord.
That said, if you take out the battery beforehand, and plug in the charging cable, it is possible using just the AC power to run the laptop. The benefit of this is a direct line and less chance of hurting the PC’s battery from overcharge.
But, at the same time, you’re reliant on the cord never becoming disconnected and thus, depriving you of the power source.
In addition, you have to make sure the power adapter is in a safe place, and won’t randomly be disconnected, or shut off.
So, all in all, not a good idea.
Plus, you might damage the battery in the process of removal or reinstallation. So, again, not a good idea. Plus, it’s meant to be used, so why remove it at all?
But what are the benefits of keeping the battery in?
Well, for starters, so long as you have the charging cable installed, you won’t have to worry about the PC randomly shutting off, so long as the laptop already has a battery charge.
And you don’t have to worry about how to remove it in the first place, so that’s a bit of peace of mind.
So, that raises the question though, doesn’t it? How do you protect your battery from being damaged?
Well, outside of physical damage, the first thing you want to look out for is continual wear and tear from dust, but above all else, overheating.
Overheating occurs when the PC is running too much at once, and the laptop’s internal fans kick into overdrive. You can tell when the PC overheats when the body of the laptop grows too hot to be touched, or when the vents at the back begin spewing hot air at a high rate.
The best way to cool down is to shut off a few programs, such as a game, and keep the PC operating in a cool environment. You don’t want to shut it off randomly or abruptly, as it might do so on its own as a failsafe.
To keep the Pc from shutting off from overheating, here are a few handy tips.
- Keep the back end of the PC clear. I.E: don’t place it in front of a wall.
- Keep the PC on a flat and clear surface.
- Consider buying a laptop cooling pad, to be placed underneath the laptop.
There also might be an internal cooling problem, so you might want to clean the vents if your PC overheats.
Also, another thing you should avoid doing is keeping your PC on a charging cable for too long. I know I just said that most PCs are built to be played with long hours in mind, but you don’t want to keep the cable fully plugged in on a laptop at %100 power.
It is fine for a while, but after ten minutes of being at full charge while still plugged in, there’s an increased chance that the battery might suffer.
Thankfully, all you have to do is just unplug the laptop when the PC is full. So it’s a pretty simple solution.
And finally, how do you keep the battery from draining too quickly?
As said before, a video game does drain a lot of power, what with its graphics, programming codes, and live services all operating at the same time. You can ease the power drain by switching to lower settings, such as downgraded graphics and whatnot.
In addition, you can also lower the power settings on the battery settings in the system menu.
Or just click the battery icon and change it to battery-saving mode.
So, yeah. You really shouldn’t play on the PC without your battery installed, but it is possible. Though, quite frankly, it’s a lot easier to just keep it plugged in than go through that hassle.
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