Laptop with HDMI monitor: shuts down without low-battery warning

alleluia · 25 Mar 2019

Hello,

I replaced my laptop battery around two years ago because it was not working well any more. The new battery is not the "official" one, and it has a larger capacity. At the beginning, the battery level that Windows reported was not very accurate, but, honestly, I did not monitor it closely because it was not too important to me.

Anyway, although I hardly take my laptop out of my home, I run it from time to time on battery because they told me to do that for the battery's sake (is it true, by the way?). When the laptop uses its own screen, it behaves as expected as the battery level drops: it eventually warns that the battery level is low, and it then hibernates.

The problem is that I am now running the laptop with an HDMI monitor (and the laptop's screen turned off), and Windows 10 looks incapable of doing a decent monitoring of the battery level in this scenario (with the external monitor). As the battery discharges, Windows gives no low-battery warning at all, and it shuts down abruptly. Then, after plugging in the laptop and turning it on, the start is "fresh": the programmes that I was using are not open, Chrome reports un "improper exit", etc. I even have to reconfigure Windows to use the external screen.

Does anyone have any clue about this? Any way to make Windows realise that the battery is running low and it has to hibernate, when using the external monitor instead of the laptop's screen?

Besides that, I would like to ask two extra questions that are in principle related to this:

1) Given that my laptop is staying at home for many months in a row, should I continue running it on battery from time to time? Would this help the battery compared to running it always plugged in?

2) I am using the energy plan "high performance" by default. Is there any way to make Windows automatically choose the "balanced" plan when running on battery? Also, is there much difference between the two plans? Which one should I use by default?

Thank you very much in advance.

Caledon Ken · 25 Mar 2019

Hi allelua.

This thread had a good discussion on battery life.

Battery charging advice

This tutorial on Battery Notifications

Change Battery Notification, Level, and Action Settings in Windows

As your battery is older please check the Critical Battery notifications. Bet that is tripping in.

While you are in the Advance power options there are numerous settings for how your machine will perform on battery. These can be adjusted in your your current plan. One of the biggest draws on your battery is your display. If you go Settings > System > Battery you have some additional controls. Some machines allow you set brightness when on battery. On my devices that option appears to have been removed. As you are proceeding through the panels to get to the Notifications (Advance Power Options) watch which options are presented.

Use to be you could set it within the panel where you set the time for the display to turn off and the machine to sleep. One column for Battery, one for Plugged in.

Ken