Top Tip Find out your Laptop battery condition in W10 & W11

[jeallen01]

Many of you will be using a laptop running Windows 10 or 11, and probably haven’t thought about the likely life of the battery inside it – I know I certainly have, especially when I’ve bought s/h ones!

I didn’t know how to check it until I found out this morning in a “Tom’s Hardware” website blog as to how to do that - so I copied the text & pics, pasted that into WORD, pdf’d that, as attached, and it does work!

I tried it out on my “new to me” s/h 4-5 yr old “Dell Refurbished” 13” Dell XPS (now on W11 Pro) – and it told me that the design capacity is about 52Ah, whereas the actual current capacity is just about half that, and falling!

NB: if the “actual current capacity” looks very low and the battery seems to be “dying” then you’ll probably have consider replacing the laptop OR get the battery changed.

If your laptop is very old and struggling then a new one (or a desktop!) is probably the way to go, but if it’s only 3-4 yrs old then a new battery will probably be the cheapest solution, and you should be able to find how to replace it by searching on YouTube - BUT be very careful where you buy the battery from, and search for laptop battery suppliers on Google/Duckduckgo as they tend to be specialists (and then read some reviews!) rather than just picking a battery from Amazon or ebay as there is some real rubbish on those sites!

 

[Channel Hopper]

I usually look for a similar model laptop on the usual auction site with knackered PSU connector and/or broken screen.

More often than not the battery is original and in good condition.

Caveat empor etc.

 

[statalite]

If one gets less running time from a battery that the time it takes to charge is it worth charging at all if the machine can be run directly from the power?

 

[ozumo]

Keeping the battery at 100% all the time won't do it any good. If you can remove the battery and run it from wall power then do that, but charge the battery before removing it.

 

[jeallen01]

Keeping the battery at 100% all the time won't do it any good. If you can remove the battery and run it from wall power then do that, but charge the battery before removing it.

How often have you actually tried to remove/replace the battery on a recent laptop??

That's often not remotely possible with many (most??) modern laptops (particularly the ultralight/small ones) unless you take a credit card / screwdriver /"spuger" to the case to open it (and then likely break most of the clips that hold the damned thing together!) !

OTOH, I will be "gearing up" take my XPS 13 apart to fit a new battery in a year or so when the above battery check tells me that I'll need to.

Bring back the clip-in batteries of old, I say!

 

[jeallen01]

If one gets less running time from a battery that the time it takes to charge is it worth charging at all if the machine can be run directly from the power?

In my relatively limited experience of various brands of laptops, running one with a totally internal failing/dead battery off a mains socket does usually work and is cheaper/quicker than trying to replace it - my wife's 2007-8 Dell 1525 (which does have a clip-in battery), albeit with an easily fitted SSD, is still OK for basic web browsing & emails when run that way.

 

[statalite]

Mine does have a clip in battery, if I unclip it runs from the mains. If I remove it an don't charge it for a while presumably it will die. If it takes me say 3 hours to charge but say gives 1.5 hours running time is it worth charging?

 

[ozumo]

How often have you tried to remove/replace the battery on a recent laptop??

I did say "if you can remove"

Seems like there are still (a few) laptops available with them. My laptop has one but that still runs XP so gives a clue to its age.

 

[ozumo]

Mine does have a clip in battery, if I unclip it runs from the mains. If I remove it an don't charge it for a while presumably it will die. If it takes me say 3 hours to charge but say gives 1.5 hours running time is it worth charging?

Unless the battery is on its last legs it should hold charge for a decent amount of time when disconnected. My laptop can go for months without use and still have a fair amount of charge left. It might be slightly more efficient to run it from mains only but whether it's enough to notice I don't know. If you have a power meter you could compare the power used to charge vs running it on mains only for 1.5 hours.

 

[jeallen01]

I did say "the battery on a recent laptop??"

 

[jeallen01]

Seems like there are still (a few) laptops available with them. My laptop has one but that still runs XP so gives a clue to its age.

Ah, so would be " slow, slow, slow!" if you had updated it to W10 then
OTOH, hope your anti-malware still supports XP, most don't!

(wife's Dell came with Vista, then W7 and now W10, whereas my own 1525 came with XP, skipped Vista to W7, and then W10 a couple of years ago - not that I ever use it nowadays for those reasons )

 

[ozumo]

Ah, so would be " slow, slow, slow!" if you had updated it to W10 then
OTOH, hope your anti-malware still supports XP, most don't!

It's offline and only used for car diagnostics and coding. I send sympathy to anyone who has to use W10.

 

[jeallen01]

It's offline and only used for car diagnostics and coding. I send sympathy to anyone who has to use W10.

W10 with latest updates isn't all that bad, and neither is W11 when you get used to the changes from W10 (that's one of the reasons I bought the XPS).

Anyway, can we "reset" this thread back to discussing the thread title?

 

[4wd]

Programs like HWMONITOR | Softwares | CPUID gives one a good overview of most things going on, incl. battery condition. See attch., my old Dell from 2014.

 

[Satspot]

It's offline and only used for car diagnostics and coding. I send sympathy to anyone who has to use W10.

And if that’s not bad enough how about Windows 11 hardware compatibility checks. Your PC/Laptop or whatever is not up to the job for an upgrade blah, blah, blah. They can keep it.

 

[jeallen01]

Programs like HWMONITOR | Softwares | CPUID gives one a good overview of most things going on, incl. battery condition. See attch., my old Dell from 2014.

I don't doubt that, and I think I've used HWMONITOR on occasions but it's probably a little too "heavy" for many people. That's one of the reasons, I posted about the MS method for battery life as that concentrates on the latter, and, having tried it, I think it probably provides rather more detail, especially regarding the rate of battery degradation over time.

 

[jeallen01]

And if that’s not bad enough how about Windows 11 hardware compatibility checks. Your PC/Laptop or whatever is not up to the job for an upgrade blah, blah, blah. They can keep it.

I'm no "tech genius" when it comes to PC's, and not really (especially with all the mobility issues now being experienced, and the problems that they are bringing) in a position to try out alternative OS's and so on as a way of "side-stepping" the W10-W11 transition, and so moving to W11 seems to the inevitable "way forward" for me/us.

Therefore, sometimes, one has to be "realistic" about the situation and how it's likely to develop over time - that's one of the reasons that I progressively "upgraded" our PC's to W10 some years ago and will now aiming to do the same, where possible, to W11 over time. The other reason was that my existing web-browsing netbook in the lounge was getting very slow under W10 and likely to die anytime soon anyway - so I bought a small W11-capable laptop then running W10, ran the W11 upgrade and then loaded up almost all the stuff already loaded on the old netbook.

That way, I learnt about the hardware issues and the upgrade processes, and am now exploring the differences between W10 & W11 before addressing the issue of what to do about replacing my wife's very old laptop (definitely not W11-capable!) and the 2 newer but not W11-capable desktops.

"Life" is what it is - and one needs to be able to do what one can to keeps the "heads above water"!