No matter how well you treat your laptop\u2019s battery, it will eventually die. If you\u2019re lucky, it will be time to replace your laptop by the time its battery dies. If you\u2019re not, you\u2019ll need to replace the battery.<\/p>\n
Battery death can seem sudden, but it doesn\u2019t have to. Windows will warn you when your battery reaches extremely low capacity levels, but you can also keep your own tabs on its capacity.<\/p>\n
Windows Will Warn You<\/p>\n
Windows doesn\u2019t normally keep you up-to-date with your battery\u2019s capacity level. As you use it and it weakens, you\u2019ll just notice that your laptop doesn\u2019t seem to last as long on battery.<\/p>\n
Eventually, when your battery reaches a low enough capacity level, Windows will warn you. You\u2019ll see a red X appear on the standard battery icon in your system tray and, when you click it, Windows will inform you that you should \u201cconsider replacing your battery.\u201d Windows also says that your computer might shut down suddenly because there\u2019s a problem with your battery \u2014 in other words, your battery can\u2019t hold enough of a charge to power your laptop for long when it\u2019s not connected to an outlet.<\/p>\n
Note that this warning was added in Windows 7, so you won\u2019t see it if you\u2019re using Windows Vista or XP.<\/p>\n
How to Check Your Laptop\u2019s Battery Capacity<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re curious just how far your laptop\u2019s battery capacity has declined, you can use a third-party tool to view it. NirSoft\u2019s free BatteryInfoView does this well, displaying the battery\u2019s approximate wear level, the capacity it was designed to have, and the capacity it currently has.<\/p>\n
Calibrating Your Battery<\/p>\n
The information above may not be completely accurate if your battery requires calibration. For example, we had a battery that reported it was almost dead. Windows warned us that it was time to replace the battery and the battery appeared to be at 27.7% wear level according to its reported capacity.<\/p>\n
After we calibrated the battery, Windows stopped warning us and the battery\u2019s reported capacity went back up to 70.8%. The battery didn\u2019t actually gain any additional charge, but the calibration helped the battery\u2019s sensor actually detect how much capacity was in the battery. If Windows says it\u2019s time to replace your battery, be sure to calibrate it first before checking its actual wear level. If you don\u2019t, you may replace a battery that\u2019s still in good enough shape. That would just be a waste of money.<\/p>\n
Why Your Laptop\u2019s Battery Capacity Declines<\/p>\n
Laptop batteries decline due to a number of factors. Heat, usage, age \u2014 all of these things are bad for batteries. Batteries will slowly die no matter what \u2014 even if you put your battery in a closet and never touched it, it would slowly lose capacity due to age. However, if you never use your battery \u2014 say you use your laptop at your desk most of the time and it gets rather hot, which is bad for the battery \u2014 removing the battery can certainly help prolong its life.<\/p>\n
Replacing Your Battery<\/p>\n
If your laptop has a user-serviceable battery \u2014 that is, one you can remove on your own \u2014 you can replace your battery fairly easily. If your laptop doesn\u2019t have a user-serviceable battery, you\u2019ll need to contact the laptop\u2019s manufacturer so they can crack your laptop open and change its battery for you.<\/p>\n
Assuming you have a user-serviceable battery, you can order a replacement battery for your laptop model online. Don\u2019t just head to eBay and buy the cheapest third-party batteries available \u2014 buy official batteries from a reputable company. Aftermarket batteries are often built on the cheap, with cut corners and insufficient testing. They can be dangerous \u2014 a cheap, counterfeit, and improperly designed battery could literally go up in flames.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No matter how well you treat your laptop\u2019s battery, it will eventually die. If you\u2019re lucky, it will be time to replace your laptop by the time its battery dies. If you\u2019re not, you\u2019ll need to replace the battery. Battery death can seem sudden, but it doesn\u2019t have to. Windows will warn you when your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.notebookbattery.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.notebookbattery.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.notebookbattery.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.notebookbattery.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.notebookbattery.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.notebookbattery.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.notebookbattery.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.notebookbattery.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.notebookbattery.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}