[SOLVED] Laptop Battery Health Decline Rate

[DGAY]

This is more of a battery question than a power supply question but here goes nothing.

How fast should the battery health of a laptop (Acer 7) drop over time? I've had this laptop for a year and five months and my battery health is currently at 90.3%. That's a pretty significant drop!

UPDATE 9/1/2020. After performing a couple of battery recalibrations, I was able to bring the battery health up to nearly 95% as shown below:

https://imgur.com/a/PDjih9A

View: https://imgur.com/a/PDjih9A


This means the battery health is not stored but estimated through a calculation so it looks like, for now, all that needs to be done is every few months perform a battery recalibration. I will also need to keep the laptop off AC when not in use to save the wear and tear on the battery charge capacity.

Thanks to everyone for replying. You did help with every answer given.

 

[Lutfij]

The health of the battery will depend on a number of factors, the weather in which it's operating(hotter or colder environments can and will degrade the battery's life and it's ability to hold charge), the amount of times it's being discharged and charged, the amount of power drawn from the battery in a period of time(more power drain would require the battery to be charged more often.

You should be fine. Might also be a good idea to see if the laptop has a BIOS update pending since that sometimes helps with battery/power consumption for the laptop. Also helps with the overall power draw/charging rate for the laptop. You might also want to look and see if the laptop has an app to manage your power settings much like how Lenovo has Vantage while other laptop makers have their own branded app that manages the battery drain and charge.

 

[sizzling]

Do you use the laptop plugged into the power adapter most of the time? If yes does the laptop have a feature to stop charging before it reaches 100%?

 

[DGAY]

Hi Lutfil and thanks for answering.

You may be on to something with regards to the environment. While Canada is not exactly a tropical scorcher when it comes to weather, we do get temperatures around 36C-38C with a humidex of 40C or even higher. While the laptop is not exposed to direct sunlight and is mostly indoors when used, there are some places it sits where humidity can be still quite high.

The laptop runs nearly all the time on adapter power. This makes sense since I do game with it often. It's an Acer Aspire 7 with a GTX1050ti card installed. According to BatteryInfoViewer, there has never been a decharge/recharge cycle noted, so this COULD be a case of calibration.

I am using the most current BIOS according to Acer's website and there is no such feature for battery maintenance. Windows 10 does have power plans. The laptop runs mostly on Balanced Power plan.

What prompted me to ask was that I noticed my laptop's charge lamp would flash instead of hold steady during a charge. Moreover, the charge level never exceeded 97% and when I attempted to recalibrate my battery level settings through a gradual discharge off adapter, the laptop would crash on Windows 10 Balanced Power Plan instead of enter hibernation state as it is supposed to.

I ran BatteryInfoViewer and noted the health of the battery was at 90.3% last night, but before writing this reply to you I decided to check it again. It's now fallen to 85.9%. Either BatteryInfoViewer is wrong and it's pulling percentages out of it's backside, or the battery health hasn't dropped that much in one year and five months, it's dropped that much in just a matter of days and the battery is dying. Windows Device Health and Acer's Care monitor still notes the battery is fine though.

 

[DGAY]

Do you use the laptop plugged into the power adapter most of the time? If yes does the laptop have a feature to stop charging before it reaches 100%?

Hi Sizzling, thanks for answering.

Yes, the laptop runs on the adapter most of the time, since I game with it and the battery would be drained in maybe an hour or two.

To your question about it stopping before it hits 100%, that answer would be no since it has reached 100% and stayed on 100% for quite some time since it is plugged in.

 

[sizzling]

Hi Sizzling, thanks for answering.

Yes, the laptop runs on the adapter most of the time, since I game with it and the battery would be drained in maybe an hour or two.

To your question about it stopping before it hits 100%, that answer would be no since it has reached 100% and stayed on 100% for quite some time since it is plugged in.

I was wondering if you have a feature that allows you to set a maximum charge %. My current Dell G5 and a couple of older laptops (not all) have had a feature to set a lower maximum charge %. This feature is suppose to lengthen the life of the battery for laptops that are predominantly used while plugged in.

 

[DGAY]

I was wondering if you have a feature that allows you to set a maximum charge %. My current Dell G5 and a couple of older laptops (not all) have had a feature to set a lower maximum charge %. This feature is suppose to lengthen the life of the battery for laptops that are predominantly used while plugged in.

I'll check under Acer's web site. It was not shown in the Acer Care app that came with this laptop. It would be handy to have that feature since my laptop runs often on AC when I game.