Microsoft says Windows 7 battery 'issue' isn't one
By Paul Miller 
posted Feb 8th 2010 5:38PM
posted Feb 8th 2010 5:38PM
After Microsoft stated a week ago that it would look into reports of Windows 7 causing premature battery degradation, we've been staying up late at night with our frazzled lithium ion cells, reading them stories about Battery Heaven and generally trying to keep an upbeat tone around the Engadget HQ. Well, it turns out not everything is rosy in batteryville, but Microsoft says Windows 7 isn't the one to blame. According to the company's testing, the new tool, which reports when a battery is down to 40% of its designed capacity and suggests replacement, hasn't reported a single false positive. Additionally, the tool uses read-only data from the battery, and is in fact incapable of tweaking the battery's life span or internal data -- it merely reports the data it receives, and stacks the theoretical design capacity up against the current full charge capacity. Microsoft attributes the reports of the tool dooming batteries to an early grave to the mere fact that many people might not have noticed the degradation already taking place in their batteries -- most batteries start to degrade noticeably within a year. Of course, not everybody's going to just take Microsoft's word for it, and Microsoft itself will continue to look into the issue, but for now this sounds like a bit of a non-issue. The part about Windows 7 being less conservative with power use is a whole 'nother issue, of course.
Microsoft this better not be a lie to us.
@Alexpeegs
What you gonna do if it is a lie to us?
@Alexpeegs
Does it matter?
Microsoft: "It's a hardware problem, talk with Toshiba"
Toshiba: "It's a software problem, talk with Microsoft"
@Alexpeegs
"better not be a lie to us"
engadget meme status engage
@mtnDewFTW Yeah, 'cause Macs have never had a battery issue. Gotta run, I smell something burning...
@lfreed
That's probably your XBox360...
@Neotyguy40 It's a feature.
@Alexpeegs Does anyone know if keeping your laptop plugged in 24/7 can degrade the battery faster? I have 2 laptops, and the one I keep plugged in all the time gets shitty battery life, and the one that's only plugged in when the battery dies gets really good battery life. It doesn't really matter because I rarely use the other one on battery power for more than a few minutes, but does anyone know if the charging is what's killing it?
That'll show them to do the nice thing by warning people when their batteries are going bad.
This whole thing was ridiculous. Imagine if HP came under fire for making its printers warn the user when the toner is getting low. How dare they!!
@Alex While i agree with you, i also disagree... I never had battery problems, then I installed windows 7 on my laptop and it would drain the battery in about a half hour on a full charge. I almost bought a new battery for it, but then i went back to vista and the problem had seemed to go away. I can't guarantee 100% accuracy in that "test" though, since i barely use my laptop anymore... but it did seem strange that my battery would go all shitty on me right after I installed 7...
@Alex
You mean kind of like when Epson (or maybe it was HP) was warning people to change out their ink cartridges even when there was still a decent amount of usable ink still left in them.
Yeah. Nice.
@Alex
Yeah, but not quite. Microsoft doesn't stand to make a buck if you have to replace your battery, whereas that's HP's lifeblood.
@ctmike78
And by "that" I meant "getting you to buy more ink."
@Hazdaz Well, they all do that, but HP is considerably better than the others. I believe it was Epson that tested the worst for leaving the most ink in the cartridge after a report of empty. I've actually gotten away with printing until the cartridge was empty on my HP printers. It just uses that reserve until it runs out, which is when it will absolutely refuse to print unless you replace the cartridge. Just note that you are responsible for damages incurred to the printer when printing after the warning (sort of a "cover your ass" thing they have to do so they don't pay for something they warned you not to do.)
@Alex The problem is, Windows 7 is unable to correctly detect the designed capacity of many batteries. It definitely reports the incorrect designed capacity for my LG laptop because the reported value is not even within the reasonable realm of possibility.
Sure MSFT can say that this is not a Windows 7 problem, but a bios vendor problem. Then they need to work with these vendors to remedy the issue. Vendors may not even know what the problem is, and are too lazy to look into it. All in all, it just looks like a bad PR issue for MSFT.
Additionally, most reporters of battery problems also report of the issue disappearing when switching back to Vista. The most likely reason is because Windows 7 over or under charges (depending on whether the reported designed capacity is too high or too low), resulting in shorter battery life or in some circumstances permanently damaged batteries.
@Alex Printers.. Reminds me of canon, whos printers stop working after n pages (has nothing to do with the ink) because canon wants to charge you for "maintenance".
@OCedHrt The operating system does not over or undercharge a battery, it can only report (perhaps falsely) what the battery life is.
Plug your laptop in with the computer off, surprise, the battery still tops off.
As Microsoft has said, all it can do is report the data it receives, it cannot write anything to it.
I have this issue on an Asus Eee pc 1000H , its not that old and already gives this issue, but yet the battery is fine. I just have to ignore it, I feel its a false positive
@Hydra
Yeah that thinking has never had negative results. Lance Armstrong had the same logic, and look at what happened to him.
@dcoke I would hardly call cancer and battery degradation comparable.
@scots79
Replacement of usable cells with unusable or unstable cells?
I've heard many worse comparisons...
I've installed W7 on 2 HP's & a Dell
1st HP. 2006 model. Battery dead, will not charge
2nd HP. 2009 model. Battery dead, will not charge
Dell. 2009 - Working fine.
Both HP's were working perfect before W7 was installed. Could be completely unrelated but it's a bit strange. I've had a friend who's had similar issues.
@combatcameraman
I have the battery issue on three HP laptops. I have two Sony laptops that are fine.
@combatcameraman
Thats just HP. they really bad laptops. I had bad battery's all the time with more than one hp. I moved to asus and am much happier.
@a falling stone I think its just luck of the draw. There aren't all that many lithium battery manufacturers, despite the various brand names.
The Sony battery recall included:
1) Apple
2) Dell
3) Toshiba
4) HP
Nuff said.
mine says 25% (plugged in, not charging) this is so confusing
@jjacinto
I had that on a HP laptop with Vista. turned out a BIOS flash fixed it and it was HP's fault all along.
@Jimbob how did you fix it? or did you fix it yet?
@jjacinto
I'm seeing a pattern emerging with HP's.
2 of mine had this issue. Now both the batteries are completely dead. I was using one of the RC's so it's happened over a period of time.
I'm definitely pointing fingers towards HP though after reading through these comments.
@combatcameraman yeah all of my family's computer are having some trouble in the battery too and yes we all got HP laptop because we're used to it
@jjacinto
" BIOS flash fixed it "
(-;
My battery lasts 3-4 hours on XP ... on Windows 7 it shuts off after about an hour or so and I have the error message above. I love the OS ... but come on Microsoft! Don't just deny the problem!
@nuck
Whenever it is battery issue, the problem being the OS' fault is just very unlikely.... probably just a 20% chance.
Only a small group experience this, so it is more a hardware issue. Go press those manufacturers, don't let them shake the issue off.
@darkmax
Tell that to the people who dualboot Vista and 7 and only have low battery life in 7.
I love MS but this is without a doubt a software problem and they need to fix it instead of denying it.
@Steve B My problem is worse in Vista, Leopard, and Snow Leopard on my 4 year old MBP than it is with 7. I'm pretty sure this is the manufacturer's problem.
@aschettler
Yeah we believe you.
@nuck
A lot of people are confusing two separate battery problems one most people get that's that windows power management isn't working right and it doesn't throttle stuff like vista and xp do and the other is windows 7 reports there battery is bad/dieing based on what the lion battery reports. They are for the most part two totally separate problems and this article is about the hardware reporting to windows that it is bad and windows relaying it to the user which neither xp nor vista did with out a third party tool. It's like blaming windows for when your printer ink reports empty yet it's still half full. The problem with Win7 draining your battery in 1 hour vs 3-4hours is a totally different issue and is still being looked into.
@Steve B it strains credulity to think there are a significant amount of people that dual-boot Vista and W7.
o_O
You see here Toshiba was smart with my laptop(A-300)
The battery Designed capacity is 43200 mWh
But Fully charged capacity is 39772 mWh
Current capacity is 39733 mWh which is 100% capacity
Now I have had my laptop since Aug 08, The battery has been unplugged, and plugged in at my pleasure, I also keep it charging when I am home.
I am really surprised that this battery is still going strong, after 18 months.
Never really had problems on my laptop, using win 7
@daryl
agreed, I haven't noticed this on my HP Mini either
Same thing (kind of) happened with Snow Leopard. Suddenly the OS was telling user when their battery needed "servicing" (below 80% or whatever capacity) and hordes of people came in to get their battery replaced.
Sounds reasonable to me. GNOME had a similar problem when it implemented an applet that reads SMART data and warns you if your hard drive is dying. Lots of people complained that GNOME was sending them garbage warnings when in fact, um, their hard drives were dying and they'd just not realized...
99 Problems but a battery aint one?
I was shocked by how fast the 3-cell battery on my HP Mini netbook went down when I upgraded from XP to W7. I was about to order an extended battery - mine went from 2.5 hours to about 1. Then and I installed freeware Vista Battery Saver and it's back as it was.
This still doesn't address the Windows 7/Vista problem of "Plugged in Not Charging" which has been turning laptops into expensive desktops for the last few years. Would really love to get some feedback on that one!
It would also help if people learnt that the battery is only meant to be used when no power is available and better be charged when the device is off.
I get the feeling it's only the "I constantly have my laptop plugged in with battery in" or the "I wait till my battery is full then unplug power only to replug it back as soon as battery empty" people that have the issue.
For educational purposes, people should read this:
http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm
@astrodemoniac
That was a very useful link. Very informative. Thanks!
These are not the Droids you're looking for
I have never noticed any issues due to battery in Windows 7. I use it o about 3 different notebooks and a dell mini 9 netbook. No issues due to battery life. Maybe Microsoft are just been helpful by telling people that there cells are dying, people are flipping out because Microsoft is doing the honest thing.