"Consider Replacing Your Battery"

[Phoenon]

I am using a HP laptop and have recently installed the Windows 7 RC. I was using the Windows 7 Beta before, and did not have any issues with the battery, but now the battery symbol in the notification bar is crossed out and the exact error message is that "[t]here is a problem with your battery, so your computer might shut down suddenly". The battery I am using is quite old, so it may in fact need to be replaced, but as far as I can tell it is functioning properly...

Did anybody else run into this problem, and do you guys think that the battery does in fact need to be replaced?

Thanks.

 

[pparks1]

Generally speaking, laptop batteries are only good for about 1 year. After that, their charges start to not hold up and the runtime on batteries just gets lower and lower. If your battery is indeed old, it's probably time to replace it.

 

[rjc8620003]

sounds like a driver issue

 

[Frostbite]

You can see the capacity of your battery by doing the following
Open a Administrator command prompt and type

powercfg -energy -output c:\energy-report.html

let it run then open the energy-report.html report. Look for a section called Battery:Battery Information near the bottom.
It shows Design Capacity and Last Full Charge which gives you an idea of how worn the battery is. Also check the errors section for anything about the battery.

Mine shows Design Capacity 63360 (which is 14.4v * 4400 mAH for my battery)
Last Full Charge is 59450

 

[aem]

What gives? is mine about to die?

Design Capacity 84240
Last Full Charge 33450
Last Full Charge (%) 39

 

[massimo0003]

Hi I have the same problem after installing W7 on my Acer aspire 6920.
The curios thing is that now I downgrade back to Vista and I'am facing the same problem with the battery which was fine earlier.
Do some of you guy have faced the same problem stepping back on earlier OS?

 

[raydabruce]

This issue is growing exponentially....

Current buzz on the internet is that this may be a class-action lawsuit issue. Many laptop owners are reporting that Windows 7 has destroyed their batteries. Also, Microsoft isn't saying much about it. This tells me that not only are they baffled, but they're LIABLE and may have to pay out millions to replace laptop batteries.

Everyone: Please keep a watch on this issue and report here. Laptop batteries are NOT CHEAP and I'm outraged to have to shell out over $100 for a new one after Win7 trashed the original. It's not a reporting error, it's a serious flaw in Windows 7 that destroys your battery's capability to hold a charge.

 

[Konceptz804]

this is ridiculous.....If Windows 7 is properly installed on a good clean battery you can get 5-6 hours of life out of a charge. I have been on a Elitebook 6930p and I've installed Win 7 ultimate x64 countless times over keeping up with the latest betas and finally the finalized released version.

 

[TheTeZ]

i doubt windows 7 is the cause.... i think people started checking..... people use their laptops as regular computers, and leave them plugged in the entire time they are in use. that is HORRIBLE for the battery! i think the incorrect usage type is more to blame. i doubt after a full charge most people take out the battery (if they are going to leave it plugged in) like they are supposed to. i would love to hear winodws come out and "comment on this" with something along the lines of, "dont be stupid" "read your manual" "its a rechargeable battery, learn to use it"

but we shall see... i guess its possible that it COULD be a windows issue... but i personally do not believe it/

 

[PoPPeR]

:sarc:I didn't know battery require drivers. :shock::huh::devil:

sounds like a driver issue

 

[Barman58]

Current buzz on the internet is that this may be a class-action lawsuit issue. Many laptop owners are reporting that Windows 7 has destroyed their batteries. Also, Microsoft isn't saying much about it. This tells me that not only are they baffled, but they're LIABLE and may have to pay out millions to replace laptop batteries.

Everyone: Please keep a watch on this issue and report here. Laptop batteries are NOT CHEAP and I'm outraged to have to shell out over $100 for a new one after Win7 trashed the original. It's not a reporting error, it's a serious flaw in Windows 7 that destroys your battery's capability to hold a charge.

Interesting idea, can you please provide links to reputable sites where this is alleged? If true this would be a major issue as the ability for a software glitch to damage hardware is not a common issue

 

[raydabruce]

If you just use Google to search for: "Consider replacing your battery" you'll get lots of links to people discussing this issue. Here's where I heard about it first:
Windows 7 "Consider replacing your battery" error: class action? - Computerworld Blogs

Also, here's a quote from someone on Microsoft Technet:
"Batteries have an EEPROM in them storing values like the battery's total capacity, what it's last charge capacity was, voltage, etc. The chip monitors all the characteristics/voltage of the battery. Basically it keeps statistics of the battery to make sure that the voltage is the same and the battery is charging properly. Once it detects that the battery is bad it stops the laptop from charging it. OEMs do not have ACPI drivers. Windows has always issued the ACPI, battery control drivers in their operating system. My observation is, Windows 7 is writing corrupt values into the battery's EEPROM causing the battery to think that something is wrong when it really is not. Once that is compromised, the battery will refuse to charge properly. On some batteries that I've seen, the value of the max capacity changes to 655360 (odd to see that number here), and the battery health percentage turns into a really large value (eg: 724500%). A corrupted EEPROM is expensive to replace and it is not cost-effective. In other words, you might as well buy a new battery."

Here's the link to the Technet discussion:
Windows 7 and the battery error "consider replacing your battery".

Microsoft recently made a statement about this issue and that is what has generated all the talk in the Internet press. I'm not saying that everyone will have this problem but it is something laptop owners need to be aware of. I've already had one battery ruined by Windows 7 (a brand new laptop) and so I'm using Linux until this issue is resolved.

Here's another thread about it on Notebook Review:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=455315

And a 2nd writer from Computerworld has written about it in another section of their website:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=455315

Yet another article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Microsoft-Windows-7-Battery-Problems,9579.html

It's everywhere if you look around.

 

[massimo0003]

Hi im sorry to disappoint you but is not an illusion this w7 issue, because i have installed an original copy of w7 on two different computers and both of them now cannot keep on without battery charger.
But..!!
it was working fine on another friend computer which was a Dell inspiron ...dont have the model number at the moment.
So i deduct that it may be subject to the individual make of the laptop.

 

[raydabruce]

According to one post, the battery problem has been reported by owners of ALL major laptop brands except Lenovo (so far). Since laptop manufacturers use batteries from many different battery manufacturers, the make & model of the laptop is not as important as the actual battery manufacturer and the problem that Windows 7 has in regulating the battery. Or, perhaps, the problem Windows 7 has in regulating certain makes of batteries.

 

[antt]

I did put a link about this in the news section, but it got forgotten.

Microsoft is reportedly investigating the issue.

Oh and person who mentioned Dell^ - Inspiron 1545 perhaps? Thats mine, running perfectly. Not sure who makes their batteries though.

 

[Barman58]

Apart from the technet discussion the reports all seem to stem from the original computerworld blog.

Reading through the links posted above it would definitely appear that there is some issue with the reading of the battery charge from some battery types from within win7.

the problem with this is of course that win7 uses this information to report to the user and to send the system into sleep / shut-down.

The following workaround is proposed in the Technet discussion and I post it here for anyone who is experiencing the issue, with full credit to the original poster msr4209211

I had the same problem on my Dell Latitude D830 , earlier this week which had Win 7 Pro installed , all of a sudden I started getting "Consider Replacing......" message. Re-installed Win 7 Pro did not help any.

Did the following to fix the problem:
1. Fully Charged Laptop Battery to 100 % , then unplugged power cable, and I let the battery drain (when battery reaches 99 % I started getting the x and consider replacing... message, i ignored that)
2. Fully Drained the battery power , laptop went to hibernate, powered it back on and then it shutdown completely.
3. Went to Bios and see if any power was left, did have 2 % left.
4. waited 15 mins and Laptop completely drained the battery and it could not be powered on.
5.Took the battery out, while the battery was out pressed the power button and drained if any power was left in the laptop.
6.Plugged the a/c adapter cable in the laptop waited 5 mins, powered the up the laptop back.
7.While charging the laptop did not get the error message

I am assuming this re-synced the application with the hardware, could be wrong, But its most likely a bug in the Win7.

Problem solved in my case, should this helps other as well.....

Original source

Windows 7 and the battery error "consider replacing your battery".

 

[raydabruce]

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.

 

[thefabe]

i doubt windows 7 is the cause.... i think people started checking..... people use their laptops as regular computers, and leave them plugged in the entire time they are in use. that is HORRIBLE for the battery! i think the incorrect usage type is more to blame. i doubt after a full charge most people take out the battery (if they are going to leave it plugged in) like they are supposed to. i would love to hear winodws come out and "comment on this" with something along the lines of, "dont be stupid" "read your manual" "its a rechargeable battery, learn to use it"

but we shall see... i guess its possible that it COULD be a windows issue... but i personally do not believe it/

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

 

[nate42nd]

Interesting idea, can you please provide links to reputable sites where this is alleged? If true this would be a major issue as the ability for a software glitch to damage hardware is not a common issue

If it IS a software glitch causing hardware problems it would be terrible. It seems doubtful but I don't know much about the subject. I have a new laptop and if this happened to me I would be a bit angry. It will be interesting to see what happens.

 

[raydabruce]

I've read dozens of articles and blogs on this and it appears that it IS a software problem BUT it doesn't appear to affect everyone with a laptop. I'm of the opinion that only certain batteries are affected and/or that only certain batteries combined with certain OEM BIOSes are vulnerable to the Windows 7 glitch in the ACPI/Battery Management software/drivers. I'd bet that Microsoft, the OEMs, the ODMs, and the battery manufacurers and BIOS writers are going to be scratching their heads on this matter for quite some time.

I've never owned a Mac and most likely never will but there's something to be said about the same company manufacturing the hardware that also writes the OS and Drivers. At least in that scenario you don't have to get 100s of people from many different parts of the computer business to cooperate with each other (or just point fingers at each other).