Battery health scan report

The critical parameter is towards the end showing battery design capacity vs. actual current charge capacity.

The critical parameter is, as Steve said, the ratio of Full charge capacity to Design capacity but it's the second-to-top section of a BatteryReport not towards the end.
[Steve might well have been thinking of an EnergyReport since it does post these particular parameters much lower down in its report layout.]

This ratio tells you how much of a battery's life has been used up.

But the ratio does not help you decide when to buy a replacement battery.
To decide that,
- Look at the SystemTray power icon % of battery power remaining after you have used the computer on battery power for the amount of time you need to be able to use it for [assuming you started with a full charge].
- The closer that % of battery power remaining is to 5%, the closer you are to needing to replace the battery.


Notes
- That SystemTray power icon % of battery power remaining is a % of Full charge capacity not Design capacity. So, as a battery wears out, the % shown means different absolute levels of power remaining.
- I wrote 5% rather than zero because that's generally when Windows starts to carry out low battery shutdown actions.
- You can play around with Power options battery warning-shutdown action levels to try to get that last bit of usefulness out of a worn battery but that does not really alter when you have to buy a replacement.
- I can recall gradually raising its shutdown level [its Critical battery level] to 40% once to keep the absolute level of remaining power constant so that there was enough power left for Windows to transition into Hibernation successfully. If I had not kept raising the % level then Windows would have run out of power and crashed before Hibernation was completed. But all my repeated fiddling achieved was delaying a battery replacement by a month or two.
- A battery from a reputable manufacturer generally lasts for between 300 & 500 full discharges but it's becoming less & less common for manufacturers to declare that lifespan.



Denis

It looks brand new.

I have not seen a Cycle count entry on any computer for a decade.

Thanks for the rep,
Denis

coolnewyorker said:

More scan report. Still I cannot interpret. Is the battery near the end? Or it has plenty left before replacement?Battery report.pdf

Like I said the Battery Capacity History towards the end shows 49,935 mWh full charge capacity compared with 49,935 mWh design capacity. Your battery is operating at 100% of its design capacity so no problem.

However that table shows a varying design capacity which is odd!

coolnewyorker said:

For a thirty -month-old HP laptop, it seems awesome. I have always wondered if leaving it plugged-in,24/7 is the right thing to do (vs intermittently discharging). So, that means I should do what I have been doing all along: keep it plugged in?

My HP laptop has a BIOS option to limit the battery charge to 80% to preserve battery health

coolnewyorker said:

For a thirty -month-old HP laptop, it seems awesome. I have always wondered if leaving it plugged-in,24/7 is the right thing to do (vs intermittently discharging). So, that means I should do what I have been doing all along: keep it plugged in?

I also have a laptop battery with Full charge capacity matching Design capacity.
It's been treated in the same way yours has - the laptop has been connected to mains power all the time & hardly ever used on battery power.
Mine is a five year old battery.

Your battery does not operate in a vacuum. It is managed by a sophisticated control system ["Battery management system"] and it is probably that that maintains battery health for us.

And I have never used that 80% charge thing either.
It could not improve upon the 100% that my battery reports or that your battery reports.
Nobody has ever produced data to demonstrate its effectiveness.
Some members have reported that their Dell & HP laptops have had that utility withdrawn.


Denis