Windows 7 battery problems

Hello all,

I have an LG S510 laptop that is affected by a [quite common] Windows 7 battery problem consisting of showing a warning message "Consider replacing your battery" and (which is much worse) gradually decreasing battery life to 10-15-40 minutes (depends on your luck). You could read more here: Windows 7 and the battery error "consider replacing your battery" (Part 9).

Currently there's no "general fix". Here Microsoft gives links to new BIOS's for some LG models that should fix the issue, but my S510 is not listed.

What do you guys know about this?

 

It states there is version F20 on the list for my LG P300 but I dont find it on the lg drivers website I can only see F19.

Can anyone help.

 

Yeah well, try contacting LG support, there's some hope they do actually have F20 for your model and will send it to you...

 

I noticed this as well. Despite Microsoft's posting, the P300 F20 bios has not been released.

And speaking of this Windows 7 Battery thing, I spent many hours reading up on it this evening. I'm still running Vista on my LG notebook. I've been focused so much on hunting down the latest version of my bios before migrating to Windows 7, but it sounds pretty scary what's going on. Not only are peoples computers not able to run on battery power, but their batteries are actually being permanently destroyed. Heck one guy's battery was written off in 2-3 days.

This could mean bad things for us LG folk. LG are the worst company I have ever seen when it comes to looking after their customers and updating bioses. I can't see them doing anything for those of us, who have laptops not even 1-2 years old. Basically we are screwed. But if it turns out to be something in the bios that is contributing to this, and from what I've read it's to do with ACPI, then it's possible though unlikely that with some expert bios modding, the "fixed" ACPI parts could be injected or modded into bioses for our laptops.

 

I have a R500 that just came back from repair. Bios was updated to COLSSF19. Still having battery replace warnings. Oddly error goes away if I remove the battery and put it back in when the laptop is on.

 

Jay,

COLSSF19 was released in 2008-07-08 so I don't think it has any bearing on your battery issue. From what I've read of this Windows 7 Battery issue, the damage done to your battery could be permanent. So even if you got an updated bios that "fixed" the problem (an oxymoron since it's MS's fault with the buggy ACPI code in Win 7), your battery is still going to be damaged from the use beforehand. What will most likely happen is over time your battery might get better, but it's doubtful it will ever be the same or work as well pre Win 7. Alot of people have nuked 7 and gone back to Vista. Most if not all mentioned their battery was still phucked.

COLSSF20 is posted on LG's website for the R500. This has been referenced on Microsoft's site too so I think it's specifically pertaining to the battery issue. Installation is pretty simple as it's a self executable that runs in Windows. Let us know how you get on.

 

Hm, I was aware there was a problem but I wasn't sure what was wrong with it. I guess I have unfortunately had a nuked battery then, because I get about 3 minutes battery life.

edit: i just tried applying the new firmware, and the issue does not appear to be resolved on my battery.

 

Neo, if you're getting only 3 mins battery life, I would in all honesty just remove the battery all together.

Now this doesn't mean you updating to bios F20 didn't fix or correct Windows 7 from nuking your battery, it's just that your battery was toast before you updated. Thus I don't think it will recover. Now there are ways to get some life back into batteries, but at this point there are so many unknown variables as to if this bios update fixed anything or not.

The only way to be sure the bios update corrected the glitch is to try a new battery in your laptop. And even then it may take months to determine if in fact Windows 7 is still destroying it, or it may only take a few weeks. It's a risk for sure as new batteries are not cheap.

 

The battery eeprom must be reset to remove the battery failure bit so windows doesn't give you warnings. If your cells are fubar period then the warnings are just going to come back after you reset it.

 

Jay, is there a utility out there that can reset the battery eeprom? Also to be able to look at your battery info and other parameters.

 

I paid some guy to do it. Software costs about $200 and you make your own cable.