Is Running a Laptop Without a Battery Safe for You and the Device?
Are you wondering if you can run a laptop without the battery, especially if you never take it mobile? Here’s what you should know.
In the past, we’ve been asked if it is safe to use a laptop computer without its battery. This is a great question since you might assume removing the battery from your laptop might hinder its performance. If your laptop’s battery won’t charge, does that mean you need to replace either the battery or the PC itself? Not necessarily. In truth, running a laptop strictly on AC power is perfectly safe, but you might run into a few limitations.
Life Without a Laptop Battery
I had a laptop that had a faulty battery, so I removed it and continued to use the computer on AC power. I use that laptop primarily as a desktop replacement, and it never leaves the house. The fact that it seldom leaves the house made me give up on the idea of buying a new battery for it.
Did it affect the computer’s performance or harm it in any way? No, it did not. Did it continue to work just as before? Yes, it did.
You Can Use a Laptop Without the Battery
There is no reason why a laptop wouldn’t work just fine without its battery, as long as you take a few considerations into account.
- Make sure you’re using the original power adapter that came with the laptop. Power variations could cause components on the laptop’s motherboard to fail, which is something that the battery can prevent by acting the way a UPS would.
- Speaking of power, you probably shouldn’t use a laptop without a battery if you live in an area where high-intensity electrical loads are likely. If you know that you don’t have good quality electrical current, don’t do this, or use a UPS too. That way, you can make sure that your laptop doesn’t suffer any damage in the event of a high load. Not to mention a UPS is essential anyway as you won’t lose your work in the case of a power outage, and they act as a surge protector too.
- Never remove the power cord from the laptop when it is working. Not only will the computer instantly shut down, but the abrupt loss of power could cause damage to its components. To help prevent the power cord from being accidentally removed, you can secure it with a rubber band.
- Don’t touch the battery contacts when it’s plugged in. They are well hidden in the case of most laptops, but you could get a bit of a jolt. It’s pretty low-voltage — most of them are at 24V maximum.
- Finally, remember only to remove the battery when the laptop is turned off and unplugged.
Caring for Your Laptop’s Battery
If you’re doing this to protect your battery, which makes sense if the laptop doesn’t go anywhere and only sits on your desk, make sure you charge the battery to around 40% before taking it out and storing it. To maximize its life, you can store it in your refrigerator, in a resealable storage bag.
If you don’t want to do that, you should at least do a full charge-discharge cycle periodically. This should prolong your battery life.
Conclusion
As long as you take some common-sense precautions, you can use a laptop without its battery. Just because the battery isn’t functional doesn’t mean it’s time to replace the laptop, especially if you always leave it plugged in anyways. Your laptop is perfectly safe to continue using even without its battery.
37 Comments
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David Spector
March 2, 2015 at 10:31 am
Modern ion-transport batteries do not need discharge-recharge cycles, not even one little bit. Discharging all the way for long life was needed only for early rechargeable (nickel–cadmium, NiCd,or NiCad) batteries.
Toni
May 27, 2017 at 11:45 pm
Hello! This is completely informative. Now I know why mine doesn’t turn on. What’s the best thing to do to a motherboard failure which is caused by an AC adapter that is not the laptop’s original adapter?
jade
May 27, 2021 at 6:37 pm
Hi. I’m not so sure about my answer but tihs happened to me the same way you did. Just look for your original charger. If you lost or destroyed it, buy a new one from where you bought the laptop.
Patsy T. Salazar
August 31, 2023 at 7:19 am
Can you use a 5200mah battery instead of a 3500
Ken Robson
September 1, 2023 at 10:54 pm
Yes, you can use a battery with a larger capacity as long as the voltage is the same.
Dominic
March 24, 2018 at 2:40 am
This clears things up. I’ve been trying to get my Acer 722 netbook to work, but no luck so far. I suspect it’s an internal failure of some sort. The laptop doesn’t charge and I can’t use it without the battery. No power light comes on. Getting it to work is a lost cause…
Will
September 10, 2018 at 7:17 pm
FYI: Some notebooks need the battery in it to work, even if it’s dead. Check with the maker
Sehway
June 23, 2019 at 4:26 pm
Just curious, what are the specs of your laptop and how often do you use it? Cause I’m a gamer and I use my laptop from like 8am to 2am daily so I’m thinking this may not be a good thing for someone to do who frequently uses their laptop for long periods without rest.
jguy
July 3, 2019 at 10:16 am
Unfortunately this is no longer strictly true. I am coming across more laptops recently that have dead batteries that won’t start up without a battery presence test being positive which means you can’t even use it as a desktop type PC. Very questionable practices by Lenovo & Acer. They are all following the evil lead given by Apple with programmed obsolescence
Julián
July 22, 2019 at 4:36 pm
J: It´s true enough for many older laptops with dead or dying batteries, used by we who don´t see the need to spend money on something that may only last another year or so. In any case, simply remove the battery and if your laptop starts, then you´re good to go plugged in.
Joanah
April 13, 2020 at 11:22 am
hi, I`ve got a 6 y.o. laptop and recently I started getting a message that my battery is degrading. Is that mean it is going to leak at some point? I can still work when the laptop is charged, but I am not a whiz.
Harish
July 28, 2020 at 11:06 pm
Hi Joanah,
The battery is not leaking. The message means that the battery is getting old and unable to charge to its full capacity as before. You can still continue to use it until it loses its capacity to retain the charge after turning off main power.
Gask Gaming
May 12, 2021 at 8:23 pm
No, This is still working in 2021. My HP Laptop is working without battery.
HP & Acer Laptop Owner
October 5, 2019 at 7:30 pm
I started noticing recently that my battery’s charge is, when fully charged, only 53%. I discovered this was due to a dying battery. Since I don’t ever move my HP laptop because of its broken lid, I decided to try removing the battery all together, and it seems to be working. Is this a long-time fix, or will I inevitably have to order a replaced battery sometime in the future?
Lyanna
March 14, 2020 at 7:34 pm
My laptops battery doesn’t work at all anymore. However I can use my laptop using onlt the power cord, but quite often my laptop will unexpectedly shut off, usually when I’m watching a movie, what could be the problem? I’ve ruled out overheating, (I think!) because my laptop isn’t hot or even all that warm.
I’m hoping someone has had a similar problem, because if the fix is only getting a new battery, I can do that.
blair marsh
October 10, 2021 at 5:18 pm
probably power cord connection is degrading?
blair marsh
October 10, 2021 at 5:23 pm
technically if you use a separate UPS it could be a perma solution. Yet for best operation of your notebook you want that battery of coarse. It’s more than just convenience of being able to use it away from on electrical socket…on most devices it provides A LOT of extra protection also electrically for your components, better to just have to replace ONE cheap one (the fuse?) than it destroy your entire unit pretty much…
Mattie
April 24, 2020 at 9:06 pm
My battery died last wk, out of the blue. I left it on a lot and it just died. My computer is 3-4 yrs so I guess it was time. I am on it now with no batter it’s a big hp laptop it has 1gb of memory I think so hopefully I will be ok until I get a battery or confirm from multiple sources, I don’t need one. Thanks!!!
Gayla Audia
May 27, 2020 at 6:35 pm
Lenovo AMD A8 would not turn on. Decided it was the battery since orange lite was flashing slowly. Bought new battery and followed instructions. Now I have a white light on all the time but the laptop will not turn in. Battery has been charged foot 28 hours. I still cannot turn it on. No green light. Help! Thanks!
ryan
June 18, 2020 at 6:41 am
Im waiting on replacement battery. Im using power only plugged in, I accidentally unplugged it before shutting down and now it will not turn on?
vinayak
June 18, 2020 at 7:28 am
uhh the part that you removed so casually
let me explain real quick i accidently dropped my laptop and then this battery part came out which is kinda weird for me as im a 15 year old and it happened for the first time today
and now if i unplug the charger the laptop shuts down as there is no battery present it shows
John & Linda Falzon
August 22, 2020 at 9:43 am
Thank You; I appreciate your explanation. That makes a lot of sense. My wife & I are “Snowbirds” and our laptop is just used in the coach. Have A Great Day.
Steve Krause
August 22, 2020 at 10:15 am
Excellent. I’m glad you enjoyed the article.
Paul
October 25, 2020 at 5:18 pm
Thanks Friend… Excellent post for any level. A failing battery can nip at you w/DPC watchdog violations and be masked as driver errors. I’ll test to the limits and see if the DPC’s subside.
Thx, Paul
roll
January 13, 2021 at 5:00 am
I only received my laptop as a gift from other country-from a friend. at the airport, he was advised to remove the battery. and so.. I received the laptop without battery. the lcd started to blink, but I still managed to use it.there are no laptop batteries sold in our province. how long will this laptop serve?
Ken R
December 31, 2021 at 8:29 am
Dell XPS 17 – Old battery almost defunct. Only use it as a desktop so happy to leave it plugged in.
Two questions: 1. Using it every day, is it better to turn off every night or leave it on permanently?
2. Will Sleep mode and Hibernate work with no battery attached?
Thanks, Ken
BillyJ
July 1, 2022 at 6:54 pm
My current Windows laptop was bought in 2016 as a desktop replacement and I have never inserted the battery. It is constantly plugged into a UPS and I have never had a problem with the laptop’s components. One thing I do advise is to prop open the lid just far enough to allow airflow through the keyboard. If the laptop is a 2-n-1, which I also have with Linux installed; flip the laptop into tablet mode for the best airflow.
Steve Krause
July 4, 2022 at 9:27 am
Thanks for your tips from your personal experience BillyJ.
Rosy K
July 4, 2022 at 5:36 pm
Yeah, I have a 2011 HP laptop that I’ve had plugged in without a battery since August of 2018. The battery was on its last legs, it was only 38% at full, so I threw it away. I use the laptop for extra file storage since I got a desktop. I see no reason to be worried about running a laptop without its battery.
blair
July 7, 2022 at 1:11 pm
So to re-iterate for most users out there. This will usually work fine. What you will be missing though is that EXTRA step of protection from surges, etc. So in the very least try and hook it up to a powerbar that has a good one. Most people are doing this WITH CHEAPER (older) notebooks, so there is less of a risk/loss. Just remember the battery does MORE than just give a power source, it gives the PERFECT power source for most units. This means that you can still use the regular power and things SHOULD BE just fine. Essentially if you fry something on a notebook like the graphics card with a power surge you are basically now the owner of a brick.
Kyle
August 7, 2022 at 7:36 pm
This article is extremely misleading. If your laptop runs without a battery, you’re very, very lucky.
Of the 5 laptops I’ve owned the last 15 years, only one of them worked without the battery. The rest all needed battery replacements. This is especially true of gaming laptops, which require a buffer for CPU spikes.
The reason I even came to this article was in the hope that it would describe a way of tricking the electronics into working without the battery.
Blair
September 4, 2023 at 7:03 am
My gaming laptop works FINE without the battery (Dell with 1050GPU). The issue comes with PROTECTION. You are removing ONE layer of protection from surges for your unit…that is the MAIN issue. Also remember that un-pluging the machine can be extra dangerous then for many units. Your powerTap should have surge protection to add an extra layer BACK for your unit. Remember that surge protectors generally last 5 years max DEPENDING on how many hits they have taken. These are important conventions.
HP Laptop and Dell Desktop User
August 13, 2022 at 7:10 pm
When a laptop doesn’t have a battery to store electricity and is plugged into an electrical socket, it will essentially become a desktop PC. Or at least… that’s what I was led to believe. What do you mean by a buffer? If there is no battery to store electricity, then there’s no where to store a buffer, but wouldn’t your CPU be able to get all the electricity it needs from the wall? I guess I’ve never owned a gaming laptop, though, and I only use my battery-less laptop for storage nowadays
cam
February 9, 2023 at 6:14 am
just to put in my two cents:
The Dell brand is good, but don’t do a 24-hour defrag or virus checking (like on a Tera-drive, or 2K GB) with the laptop’s battery in. It burned out the battery on mine due to overheating. I use the laptop without the battery now with no problem. However, on a Window’s update, it is best to have it in for the restart after updating. [note: F1 is the bypass key]
Moral of the story: if it is a long, drawn-out process that you are putting the computer through that will take hours, then turn it off and take out the battery first. No reason to abuse the poor thing.
Jon Riedel
February 23, 2023 at 1:27 pm
I took out the battery on my 3 year old HP pavilion Laptop …. It works great except for one thing , If i unplug it and then plug it back in , I get a black screen saying something like its rebooting but then the screen leaves and starts up fine … Does ths hurt the laptop ? Should i just leave it plugged in ? and does it hurt the laptop to just leave it plugged in all the time ? thankyou so much , Jon
Henry
May 25, 2023 at 10:01 am
can a laptop hibernate when it’s plugged without the battery?
Thomas
July 6, 2023 at 1:14 pm
Thanks for focusing on the essentials.