No
matter how well you treat your laptop’s battery, it will eventually die. If
you’re lucky, it will be time to replace your laptop by the time its battery
dies. If you’re not, you’ll need to replace the battery.
Battery
death can seem sudden, but it doesn’t 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.
Windows Will
Warn You
Windows
doesn’t normally keep you up-to-date with your battery’s capacity level. As you
use it and it weakens, you’ll just notice that your laptop doesn’t seem to last
as long on battery.
Eventually,
when your battery reaches a low enough capacity level, Windows will warn you.
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.
Note
that this warning was added in Windows 7, so you won’t see it if you’re using
Windows Vista or XP.
How to Check
Your Laptop’s Battery Capacity
If
you’re curious just how far your laptop’s battery capacity has declined, you
can use a third-party tool to view it. 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.
Calibrating Your
Battery
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.
After
we calibrated the battery, Windows stopped warning us and the battery’s
reported capacity went back up to 70.8%. 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. If Windows says it’s time to
replace your battery, be sure to calibrate it first before checking its actual
wear level. If you don’t, you may replace a battery that’s still in good enough
shape. That would just be a waste of money.
Why Your
Laptop’s Battery Capacity Declines
Laptop
batteries decline due to a number of factors. Heat, usage, age — all of these
things are bad for batteries. 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. 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.
Replacing Your
Battery
If
your laptop has a user-serviceable battery — that is, one you can remove on
your own — you can replace your battery fairly easily. 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.
Assuming
you have a user-serviceable battery, you can order a replacement battery for
your laptop model online. Don’t just head to eBay and buy the cheapest
third-party batteries available — 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 — a cheap, counterfeit, and
improperly designed battery could literally go up in flames.
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