Does Playing Games While Charging Damage Battery Laptop?
Is it possible to damage the battery of your laptop if you play games while charging it?
If you’re wondering whether or not this is true, then you have to read on and find out the answers! It’s important to understand that although it’s possible to harm your battery by playing games while charging, it isn’t very likely that you will actually damage your battery in this way. This isn’t the same as charging your phone or tablet; unlike your phone or tablet, laptops usually use their batteries even when they are plugged in and are being charged.
Use your laptop in Safe Mode:
Before you rush to damage control, though, there is an easy way to confirm if your battery has taken a hit. Simply turn your laptop on in safe mode. When you boot up your computer in safe mode, it runs all of its processes using only basic components—no additional programs and no software running in the background. If your laptop works normally while running in safe mode, then you know it’s something installed on your machine that’s causing problems (such as bloatware). To be clear: Using safe mode won’t actually fix any of these issues—it will just tell you what they are. From there, you can take steps to resolve them or uninstall software you don’t need and aren’t using anyway.
Don’t play on high graphics settings:
When you’re gaming, remember that your graphics card is running full-speed. This means that it will burn up more power than normal. Use an external battery pack to avoid draining your laptop’s internal battery during game play. When you plug into an external power source, games will automatically adjust their settings to take advantage of a stable source of power. Before long, you won’t even need to think about high-power mode or low-power mode – just plug in and enjoy!
Keep your charger at least three feet away from your computer:
If you’re a gamer, you’re probably plugging your gaming laptop into a power source on a regular basis. Depending on what types of games you play, you may be charging while playing—which can significantly reduce your battery life in just one sitting. If it takes three hours to charge your laptop, and you play games for an hour while plugged in, you are reducing your battery life by 66%. In addition to using uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), ensure that cables are kept at least three feet away from your computer and connected devices.
Don’t leave your battery plugged in all the time
Although today’s lithium-ion batteries hold their charge for extended periods of time, they don’t last forever. Eventually, your battery will become unable to hold a charge and you’ll need to purchase a new one. To extend its life span, simply follow our battery charging guide and unplug your laptop when it’s not in use. Doing so will ensure that your battery has longevity and won’t end up overcharging. That being said, if you find yourself without access to an outlet for an extended period of time, keeping your computer plugged in while playing games may not be harmful. As long as you avoid overheating (which is covered below), your battery should be fine.
Take out unnecessary peripherals
If you’re playing games while your laptop is charging, be aware that they could be using up a lot of battery power. You can easily check how much longer you can play by pressing Alt + Tab or Cmd + Tab on Mac, which will show how much battery power each app is consuming. Close any unnecessary apps and try to only use essential apps while your computer is charging. For more tips on optimizing laptop battery life, check out our post, How to Get More Juice Out of Your Laptop Battery.
Turn off all background apps
You can save battery life by disabling all apps running in background. To disable all apps running in background, please follow these steps: 1. Press Windows Key + R together to bring up Run dialog box. 2. Type gpedit.msc and press Enter to open Local Group Policy Editor 3. In Local Group Policy Editor window, navigate to following: Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Multimedia 4. In right-side pane double-click on Do not keep activities in memory while computer is running on battery 5. Set it to Enabled and click Apply button 6. Double-click on Turn off display 7. Set it to Enabled and click Apply button 8.
