Battery Life is supposedly low?

My computer is a fairly new (about 5 months) Asus N61J Series laptop. Lately I've been getting a "Consider Replacing Your Battery" warning and a "There is a problem with your battery, so your computer might shut down suddenly" warning. It often shuts off suddenly even though I know it has a charge.

I know there are issues with Windows 7 and the way it recognizes batteries. The way I have used my laptop, there is no way that it could have worn out already.

I know there's a way to make it so that Windows won't turn off your computer when it's that low, but then I would never know how much life I have left.

Is there an application of some kind that can accurately check my battery power if I were to tell Windows to stop?

Are there other options?

Thank you for your help!

 

Windows itself won't turn off your computer. It will only put it into standby or hibernate.

 

have you tried CUPID? it will give you battery info.

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

 

do you leave your battery connected all the time when on mains power. this will sooner than later weaken the charge on your battery but 5 months does sound a little quick. took just over a year before my battery wouldnt hold its charge.
ever since removing the battery while on mains and using Battery Care its still at 99% after 2 years.

i would contact your tech support at asus and get a new battery which is covered by warranty.

 

No I rarely leave my laptop connected to a wall. I charge it fully, unplug it, use it, and I don't charge it again until it's close to dying again.

Now I'm kind of on edge doing this because it shuts off randomly. Within the past 8 minutes it supposedly went from 93% charge to 66%!

 

what are you using it for.gaming or brousing the net and have you got it set on high performance,balanced or power saver.

 

Discharging the battery to its end of capacity is a good method to kill a battery.

No.
What should I do if I receive a "Consider replacing your battery" notification?. Read also http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Solutions-to-common-battery-problems

On some laptops, a faulty Bios caused this message to appear even with a new battery: A warning message is displayed immediately after you upgrade to Windows 7 on certain LG notebooks: "Consider replacing your battery"

Michael

 

I have it on Power Saver now, I did have it on Balanced. I'm a computer science major, I use it for programming, photoshopping, internet, 3D modeling, etc.

 

Cpuid Hardware monitor :

My asus: 1 year+ old , plugged in 99.9% of time

Hardware monitor Battery 1
Voltage 0 12.31 Volts [0x3012] (Current Voltage)
Capacity 0 50600 mWh [0xC5A8] (Designed Capacity)
Capacity 1 49500 mWh [0xC15C] (Full Charge Capacity)
Capacity 2 47916 mWh [0xBB2C] (Current Capacity)
Level 0 2 pc [0x61] (Wear Level)
Level 1 97 pc [0x60] (Charge Level)

My dell: 3 year old battery used on the go all the time.

Hardware monitor Battery 1
Voltage 0 12.51 Volts [0x30D9] (Current Voltage)
Capacity 0 42180 mWh [0xA4C4] (Designed Capacity)
Capacity 1 16672 mWh [0x4120] (Full Charge Capacity)
Capacity 2 42180 mWh [0xA4C4] (Current Capacity)
Level 0 60 pc [0x27] (Wear Level)
Level 1 253 pc [0xFC] (Charge Level)


When the (Full Charge Capacity) gets too far from (Designed Capacity) then the battery is dieing down and no way to fix it.
It's the wear-out level.

The battery got sensors inside that monitor capacity all the time .. even just 1s of disconnection anywhere inside would instant kill it and the battery is dead then, so never ever go to 0%

In the dell using the dead (35% max level) battery when plugged in all the time to save my good (better) battery that is stored away to be used on the go.

 

i would defo contact asus support and get it replaced as it should last a lot longer than 5 months.

 

Also, please read this article on battery care:
Ask Ars: What is the best way to use a Li-ion battery?

In sum:

• Not using the battery is not good, you need to use it to slow down oxidation.
• Having the battery at 100% all the time strains the battery.
• Heat kills your battery.
• Forcing the battery to be empty kills the battery.

 

Ok just for the record...

Charging your battery to max and then discharging it to almost empty is a fantastic way to totally kill your battery.

Batteries need at least some charge left... the ions must always be kept moving, if they slow down too much then you're going to lose your battery.

Charging it and then unplugging and using it is also really bad for your battery and is very stressful. The best thing you can do is stay plugged in, but that also lowers the life of your battery. However much slower than the previous situation.

Unplugging the battery completely and leaving it can also kill the battery after a certain time.. so there isn't much you can do about it.

Your best bet is to unplug it and not use it, on top of that you could pop it in every few days just for a full day. I've read on a ton of websites more or less how to care for a battery.

The last thing I will ask is have you installed Linux/Ubuntu lately? When I installed uBuntu on my old laptop my battery died completely... I did a test a month before I installed uBuntu with CPU-Z and my battery is 90% fine, after installing ubuntu and running it for a few weeks (I had to use the battery a few times) my battery was reduced to 33% on CPU-Z. Windows was also telling me to replace it, on top of that I had problems charging the battery at all.. I contacted Devs on the forums and they told me they were fixing issues with battery power consumption and that my complaint really wasn't anything they could deal with. Along with no W-LAN support I uninstalled Linux.

That's all I can think of. Get it sent away, if it's only 4 cells then yeah you've used it to death. If it's 6 then it shouldn't have died so fast but it sounds like you've done the most stressful stuff possible to it.

As for others with the uBuntu bit, to others; I don't need your opinions on the matter debating with my personal experience. Just in advance. Thanks but I don't want to hear 1 word of 'That's impossible, uBuntu shouldn't blah blah'. I spent almost 2 weeks talking to Devs on the forums.

 

What?! No! Not at all!

But, the rest is correct.