Windows 7 - "Consider Replacing Your Battery"

I agree with having it plugged in all the time wish i could get my Mom to understand it still even after Gateway told her it would shorten the battery life still plugged in. Fabe

I tried that workaround and it didn't work for me. And I doubt it worked for him either (he doesn't say what happened after it finished charging or what the capacity percentage change (if any) was. If the EEPROM in the battery has been written with bad data by Win 7, (the cause of the problem) there doesn't seem to be any remedy. The "workaround" seem only to have stopped the error msg (while charging). If it were as easy as the "workaround" says, I doubt this issue would still be in the news.

Another poster in another thread installed Linux after Windows 7 damaged his battery by reducing the capacity of a new battery to only 62% in just a few days usage. In Linux, he drained the battery totally and then re-charged it while the laptop was off for several hours. In his case, he gained back about 20% more capacity (to 81%). So there may be something to this method. This is the real issue here: Windows 7 writing inaccurate data to the battery's EEPROM saying it's capacity is reduced when, if fact, it is not. But, because the battery reports reduced capacity, Windows will shut down the machine prematurely and there appears to be no fix as of yet. An update to Windows ACPI and battery management driver is probably the fix that is needed.

I hope Microsoft finds a solution soon so I can go back to Windows 7.

Guys for my lappy, it was the Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery PnP device, as soon as i disabled this is Device Manager, the icons message just went away. My XP dualboot is fine so i disabled it on my Windows 7.

That's fine for getting rid of the message but it won't correct the wrong values for battery capacity that Windows 7 has written to your battery's EEPROM chip.

How I fixed my "consider replacing your battery".

1) Adjust all setting in your power scheme to minimize actions when the battery is low. (turn off all sleep or hibernate commands and reduce all warnings to 0 or 1 minute).
2) Run the following command:

To change the 'Battery->Critical battery action->'On battery' setting to "Do nothing" using powercfg.exe

1. activate the power scheme you want to modify.
2. open an elevated command console (windows key, type 'cmd' in start menu, press "ctrl+shift+enter", click 'continue')
3. execute "powercfg -setdcvalueindex SCHEME_CURRENT SUB_BATTERY BATACTIONCRIT 0"
4. your current power scheme will show "Battery->Critical battery action->On battery: Do nothing" despite the option being unavailable in the drop box.

3) Run your laptop until it dies...your pc will fully crash. Then fully recharge and run until it dies again.

This will recalibrate your battery. Because Windows 7 automatically shuts down your PC when it thinks the battery is low, it never recalibrates. You have to stop if from sleeping or hibernating all together to get the battery to recalibrate. I went from 66% battery wear to 0.0% overnight.

Can you explain more on this value and where i can check it?

I don't know of any way to check it other than the usual way within Windows. It will report your charge capacity (original and current) with "powercfg.exe -energy -output [filename]." If your charge capacity is dropping fast, then you have a problem. Batteries should last anywhere from 1 to 5 years, depending on usage patterns, in my experience.