Just open the Windows 10/Start menu and search for Power Options. You can alter the battery consumption settings, and you can choose the best power-saving option for your laptop in which you can choose to set less brightness and many more settings.
Perhaps you’re exposing it to too much heat if you leave your battery in while playing demanding, strenuous PC games on your laptop.The best way to reduce your laptop’s battery consumption is by adjusting your laptop’s power settings. If your capacity is dropping more quickly than you’d like, that may be a sign that you should be treating your battery better. There’s no point in obsessing over your battery’s capacity - it was designed to be used, after all - but it’s something to keep on eye on. They can be dangerous - a cheap, counterfeit, and improperly designed battery could literally go up in flames. Aftermarket batteries are often built on the cheap, with cut corners and insufficient testing. Don’t just head to eBay and buy the cheapest third-party batteries available - buy official batteries from a reputable company.
If your laptop doesn’t have a user-serviceable battery, you’ll need to contact the laptop’s manufacturer so they can crack your laptop open and change its battery for you.Īssuming you have a user-serviceable battery, you can order a replacement battery for your laptop model online. If your laptop has a user-serviceable battery - that is, one you can remove on your own - you can replace your battery fairly easily. To make your laptop’s battery last longer, read our explanation of battery life myths and facts to know what works and what doesn’t. However, if you never use your battery - say you use your laptop at your desk most of the time and it gets rather hot, which is bad for the battery - removing the battery can certainly help prolong its life. Batteries will slowly die no matter what - even if you put your battery in a closet and never touched it, it would slowly lose capacity due to age. Heat, usage, age - all of these things are bad for batteries. Laptop batteries decline due to a number of factors. RELATED: Debunking Battery Life Myths for Mobile Phones, Tablets, and Laptops
Why Your Laptop’s Battery Capacity Declines If you don’t, you may replace a battery that’s still in good enough shape. If Windows says it’s time to replace your battery, be sure to calibrate it first before checking its actual wear level. The battery didn’t actually gain any additional charge, but the calibration helped the battery’s sensor actually detect how much capacity was in the battery. 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.Īfter we calibrated the battery, Windows stopped warning us and the battery’s reported capacity went back up to 70.8%. For example, we had a battery that reported it was almost dead. The information above may not be completely accurate if your battery requires calibration.
RELATED: How to Calibrate Your Laptop's Battery for Accurate Battery Life Estimates
Some batteries may display more information, such as the number of charge and discharge cycles they’ve been through. In other words, the laptop’s battery only holds 70.8% of its original capacity when fully charged.
However, the battery’s current capacity at full charge is only 61,261 mWh.
NirSoft’s free BatteryInfoView does this well, displaying the battery’s approximate wear level, the capacity it was designed to have, and the capacity it currently has.įor example, in the below screenshot, we see that the battery was designed to hold 86,580 mWh of energy. If you’re curious just how far your laptop’s battery capacity has declined, you can use a third-party tool to view it. How to Check Your Laptop’s Battery Capacity Note that this warning was added in Windows 7, so you won’t see it if you’re using Windows Vista or XP. You’ll 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 “consider replacing your battery.” Windows also says that your computer might shut down suddenly because there’s a problem with your battery - in other words, your battery can’t hold enough of a charge to power your laptop for long when it’s not connected to an outlet. As you use it and it weakens, you’ll just notice that your laptop doesn’t seem to last as long on battery.Įventually, when your battery reaches a low enough capacity level, Windows will warn you. Windows doesn’t normally keep you up-to-date with your battery’s capacity level.