jeallen01
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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!
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!