Solved After Clean Install: Battery Charge Issues

[zoomont]

Hello!

I recently did a clean install of Win7 with help from advice I got here. Thanks again.

Now, I seem to be having battery issues. I changed my settings to where I thought I had them before (made a power plan, chose lowest screen brightness for unplugged). But when I unplug the power cord, the screen goes to dim as expected, but battery goes immediately to 91% and the fan goes to HIGH. When I plug it back in, the fans gets loud again, and it is immediately back to 100% charge.

It never used to do this. It used to simply dim when unplugged, begin at 100% and drop slowly, VERY slowly. The battery life before the clean install was quite good, but now seems to be less.

Is there some setting I am missing that was in effect when I set up a power plan last time?

Thanks!

 

[fseal]

There may be /several/ hardware drivers that you need to get from your laptop manufacturer to make the laptop fully functional again. Try that first. I had to install about 10 driver packages before a clean install of Windows 7 worked completely like new on a Sony laptop (And I left off 5 more that were pure bloatware).

If after installing the manufacturers driver package(s) doesn't fix it. You can try googling "recalibrating laptop battery" though I've not actually found something that really does what it says. :/

 

[gregrocker]

Look for the battery management or similar driver or software on the Support Downloads webpage for your model computer.

If we had the System Specs in the bottom left corner of your post we could have already found the needed downloads for you.

 

[zoomont]

Thanks.

I included the model number in the specs. I'm not sure which driver it is on the HP website.

 

[zoomont]

the model is hp pavilion dv4-20145dx

thx

 

[Faceofjoe421]

Hi Zoomont,

I'm assuming your Win7 Professional 32Bit OS is for your HP if so, the drivers can be found here:
Software & Driver Downloads HP Pavilion dv4-2045dx Entertainment Notebook PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English).

I would install all the drivers on there but the Software and Utilites (with the exception of HP Wireless Assistant), unless you really need them, install them and instead of all 4 Network drivers, I would go with Atheros.

After installing all drivers, run a Update Check in Windows Update and install all the Updates and see if it is fixed then.

Cheers, Joe.

 

[zoomont]

hey,

it's 64-bit.

i dont think any of those are for the battery.

are there some special settings for the battery that HP holds hostage in its installed software?

it's very odd, i unplug it, fan whirrs loudly (which i take to mean that the processor/whatever is working more instead of less) and immediately goes 91%, and the battery drains much faster. before the clean install, it would last a LONG time. it was a very attractive aspect of this laptop.

the battery management driver that gregrocker mentions.... where is that?

thx

 

[Faceofjoe421]

hey,

it's 64-bit.

i dont think any of those are for the battery.

are there some special settings for the battery that HP holds hostage in its installed software?

it's very odd, i unplug it, fan whirrs loudly (which i take to mean that the processor/whatever is working more instead of less) and immediately goes 91%, and the battery drains much faster. before the clean install, it would last a LONG time. it was a very attractive aspect of this laptop.

the battery management driver that gregrocker mentions.... where is that?

thx

At least try updating every driver, for all you know it could work, the Baterry Msnagement software isn't on that website.

Another thing to try is to actually buy a new battery.

 

[zoomont]

so there is no "HP Pavilion Battery Management Driver" available for this machine to get it running properly?

there had to have been something installed before that was lost during the clean install.

 

[Faceofjoe421]

It is not available, maybe the GFX are using too much power or something or a part in your computer is faulty

 

[zoomont]

no, everything with the battery was working 100% minutes before the clean install. clearly, some functionality with the battery was lost. there has to be software out there to fix it. must i reinstall to factory settings to get the BATTERY to work correctly? seems ridiculous.

 

[fseal]

Something like battery driver could easily be hidden in with 8 other motherboard hardware drivers under a single package labelled something unhelpful like "System Drivers" or something :/

And yes, your battery charge controller is just another piece of hardware like the touchpad or anything else that needs a specific driver for the specific hardware. Though usually will just barely work with built-in bare bones drivers till you can get the real one installed.

 

[Faceofjoe421]

Sounds like you got it fixed, please let us know how.