Battery won't charge to 100%, even though it says it did

Xavi · 11 Aug 2017

I have an Alienware 14 and I have been having a problem with charging.
My problem is that when I am charging my laptop, it reaches roughly 65% charge, then immediately goes to 100%. When I unplug my charger, it goes back down to 65%. I have desktop battery mode disabled, and it hasn't changed anything.
Any solutions?

Barman58 · 11 Aug 2017

The Sm@rtA$$ suggestion would be to replace the battery

and to be totally honest that is the only surefire solution, Batteries have a usage life as well as a shelf life (which can mean that if a battery is stocked for a long time before first use you could already be part way down the road to failure.

There are methods to condition some older types of battery (NiCad), which tends to build up a charge memory if the users charges the battery too much - Ni-Cad batteries should be allowed to run down to almost no charge regularly to prevent this and following a similar but exaggerated system can work to reverse the issue -

Ni-Cad Conditioning

Fully charge the battery
Leave the device running at a high load, [Playing Video / music / encoding a video, (that you can afford to lose], after you switch off all battery saving options so that you can actually get to a situation that the battery gets so low that the device shuts down - leave for half an hour and try again as sometime the battery can "regain" access to more power reserve
Fully Charge the battery
Repeat This several times and also perform this action Once at least once a month

NImH batteries are supposedly immune to these issues but it can sometimes happen and the above routine may help but is just as likely to not do anything

The basic issue here is that a battery is a chemical reaction based device and the chemical reaction is reversible, (charging) only a set number of times ( you will often see very small print on rechargeable batteries stating an approximate number of charge cycles possible), the problem is that switching the device on when plugged into the mains supply is treated by the battery as a charge cycle. Some laptops will allow you to remove the battery and use it as a normal mains device - some will not - if you have to have the battery in place to use the laptop then don't plug it in if you can as this will actually improve overall battery life, both per charge and over the full life of the battery

NorfolkIT · 11 Aug 2017

right click on command prompt, run as administrator then run the following command,

First command cd %userprofile%\Desktop

Second Command;

powercfg -energy

This will generate a report and tell us more information, upload the report so we can let you know what the best solution's is off what you have told us I would suggest ordering a new battery for the computer.

over time like most hardware needs replacing.

Kind Regards

Bradley

f14tomcat · 11 Aug 2017

Battery meter may be confused and needs re-calibrating. The jump 65%-100%-65% sounds like it may.

Same thing happens with phone batteries and calibration. That procedure is similar, but doesn't apply here.

Here's a guide to re-calibration for lappy batteries that may give you a little more insight and some tips and procedures. Lot was already posted above, just a different twist and some extras. Give a look, if you wish.

How To Calibrate Battery on Windows Laptops - Windows - Laptop Tech Support

Xavi · 11 Aug 2017

Here's the results.

Power Efficiency Diagnostics Report

Computer Name	DESKTOP-N5FFPNT
Scan Time	2017-08-11T10:04:08Z
Scan Duration	60 seconds
System Manufacturer	Alienware
System Product Name	Alienware 14
BIOS Date	04/23/2014
BIOS Version	A09
OS Build	14393
Platform Role	PlatformRoleMobile
Plugged In	true
Process Count	108
Thread Count	2031
Report GUID	{a4cb3f20-6b1c-4878-8633-58fb4dd7b34d}

Analysis Results

Errors

Power Policy:Power Plan Personality is High Performance (On Battery)
The current power plan personality is High Performance when the system is on battery power.

Power Policy:802.11 Radio Power Policy is Maximum Performance (On Battery)
The current power policy for 802.11-compatible wireless network adapters is not configured to use low-power modes.

Power Policy:PCI Express ASPM is disabled (On Battery)
The current power policy for PCI Express Active State Power Management (ASPM) is configured to Off.

Power Policy:Power Plan Personality is High Performance (Plugged In)
The current power plan personality is High Performance when the system is plugged in.

Power Policy:Minimum processor performance state is 100% (Plugged In)
The processor is not configured to automatically reduce power consumption based on activity.

Power Policy:PCI Express ASPM is disabled (Plugged In)
The current power policy for PCI Express Active State Power Management (ASPM) is configured to Off.

USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Selective Suspend
This device did not enter the USB Selective Suspend state. Processor power management may be prevented when this USB device is not in the Selective Suspend state. Note that this issue will not prevent the system from sleeping.

Device Name	USB Root Hub
Host Controller ID	PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_8C26
Host Controller Location	PCI bus 0, device 29, function 0
Device ID	USB\VID_8086&PID_8C26
Port Path

USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Selective Suspend
This device did not enter the USB Selective Suspend state. Processor power management may be prevented when this USB device is not in the Selective Suspend state. Note that this issue will not prevent the system from sleeping.

Device Name	Generic USB Hub
Host Controller ID	PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_8C26
Host Controller Location	PCI bus 0, device 29, function 0
Device ID	USB\VID_8087&PID_8000
Port Path	1

USB Suspend:USB Device not Entering Selective Suspend
This device did not enter the USB Selective Suspend state. Processor power management may be prevented when this USB device is not in the Selective Suspend state. Note that this issue will not prevent the system from sleeping.

Device Name	Qualcomm Atheros AR3012 Bluetooth 4.0
Host Controller ID	PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_8C26
Host Controller Location	PCI bus 0, device 29, function 0
Device ID	USB\VID_0CF3&PID_3004
Port Path	1,5

Platform Power Management Capabilities:PCI Express Active-State Power Management (ASPM) Disabled
PCI Express Active-State Power Management (ASPM) has been disabled due to a known incompatibility with the hardware in this computer.

Device Drivers:
Devices with missing or misconfigured drivers can increase power consumption.

Device Name	Bluetooth LE Device
Device ID	BTHLE\DEV_C747CC353546\8&250E0AD4&0&C747CC353546
Device Status	0x1802400
Device Problem Code	0xa

Device Drivers:
Devices with missing or misconfigured drivers can increase power consumption.

Device Name	Bluetooth LE Device
Device ID	BTHLE\DEV_C747CC333546\8&250E0AD4&0&C747CC333546
Device Status	0x1802400
Device Problem Code	0xa

Device Drivers:
Devices with missing or misconfigured drivers can increase power consumption.

Device Name	Unknown Device
Device ID	ACPI\SMO8810\1
Device Status	0x1802400
Device Problem Code	0x1c

Device Drivers:
Devices with missing or misconfigured drivers can increase power consumption.

Device Name	Bluetooth LE Device
Device ID	BTHLE\DEV_C747CC343546\8&250E0AD4&0&C747CC343546
Device Status	0x1802400
Device Problem Code	0xa

Warnings

Power Policyim timeout is long (On Battery)
The display is configured to automatically dim after longer than 5 minutes.

Timeout (seconds)

585

Power Policyim timeout is long (Plugged In)
The display is configured to automatically dim after longer than 10 minutes.

Timeout (seconds)

885

Power Policy:Sleep timeout is long (Plugged In)
The computer is configured to automatically sleep after longer than 30 minutes.

Timeout (seconds)

3600

CPU Utilization:Processor utilization is moderate
The average processor utilization during the trace was moderate. The system will consume less power when the average processor utilization is very low. Review processor utilization for individual processes to determine which applications and services contribute the most to total processor utilization.

Average Utilization (%)

2.78

CPU Utilization:Individual process with significant processor utilization.
This process is responsible for a significant portion of the total processor utilization recorded during the trace.

Process Name	MsMpEng.exe
PID	372
Average Utilization (%)	0.65
Module	Average Module Utilization (%)
\Device\HarddiskVolume4\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Defender\Definition Updates\{B350067D-D0F1-4D07-994B-621A5ECC2E8C}\mpengine.dll	0.35
\SystemRoot\system32\ntoskrnl.exe	0.14
\Device\HarddiskVolume4\Windows\System32\ntdll.dll	0.07

CPU Utilization:Individual process with significant processor utilization.
This process is responsible for a significant portion of the total processor utilization recorded during the trace.

Process Name	svchost.exe
PID	104
Average Utilization (%)	0.59
Module	Average Module Utilization (%)
\SystemRoot\system32\ntoskrnl.exe	0.35
\SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\NTFS.sys	0.11
\SystemRoot\System32\drivers\FLTMGR.SYS	0.05

CPU Utilization:Individual process with significant processor utilization.
This process is responsible for a significant portion of the total processor utilization recorded during the trace.

Process Name	System
PID	4
Average Utilization (%)	0.28
Module	Average Module Utilization (%)
\SystemRoot\system32\ntoskrnl.exe	0.11
\SystemRoot\System32\drivers\athw8x.sys	0.11
\SystemRoot\System32\drivers\FLTMGR.SYS	0.00

Information

Platform Timer Resolution:Platform Timer Resolution
The default platform timer resolution is 15.6ms (15625000ns) and should be used whenever the system is idle. If the timer resolution is increased, processor power management technologies may not be effective. The timer resolution may be increased due to multimedia playback or graphical animations.

Current Timer Resolution (100ns units)

156253

Power Policy:Active Power Plan
The current power plan in use

Plan Name	OEM High Performance
Plan GUID	{8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c}

Power Policy:Power Plan Personality (On Battery)
The personality of the current power plan when the system is on battery power.

Personality

High Performance

Power Policy:Video Quality (On Battery)
Enables Windows Media Player to optimize for quality or power savings when playing video.

Quality Mode

Optimize for Video Quality

Power Policy:Power Plan Personality (Plugged In)
The personality of the current power plan when the system is plugged in.

Personality

High Performance

Power Policy:802.11 Radio Power Policy is Maximum Performance (Plugged In)
The current power policy for 802.11-compatible wireless network adapters is not configured to use low-power modes.

Power Policy:Video quality (Plugged In)
Enables Windows Media Player to optimize for quality or power savings when playing video.

Quality Mode

Optimize for Video Quality

System Availability Requests:Analysis Success
Analysis was successful. No energy efficiency problems were found. No information was returned.

Battery:Battery Information

Battery ID	41167SANYOPABAS0241231
Manufacturer	SANYO
Serial Number	41167
Chemistry	Li-I
Long Term	1
Sealed	0
Design Capacity	57720
Last Full Charge	57720

Platform Power Management Capabilities:Supported Sleep States
Sleep states allow the computer to enter low-power modes after a period of inactivity. The S3 sleep state is the default sleep state for Windows platforms. The S3 sleep state consumes only enough power to preserve memory contents and allow the computer to resume working quickly. Very few platforms support the S1 or S2 Sleep states.

S1 Sleep Supported	false
S2 Sleep Supported	false
S3 Sleep Supported	true
S4 Sleep Supported	true

Platform Power Management Capabilities:Connected Standby Support
Connected standby allows the computer to enter a low-power mode in which it is always on and connected. If supported, connected standby is used instead of system sleep states.

Connected Standby Supported

false

Platform Power Management Capabilities:Adaptive Display Brightness is supported.
This computer enables Windows to automatically control the brightness of the integrated display.

Platform Power Management Capabilities:Processor Power Management Capabilities
Effective processor power management enables the computer to automatically balance performance and energy consumption.

Group	0
Index	0
Idle State Count	2
Idle State Type	ACPI Idle (C) States
Nominal Frequency (MHz)	2401
Maximum Performance Percentage	100
Lowest Performance Percentage	33
Lowest Throttle Percentage	3
Performance Controls Type	ACPI Performance (P) / Throttle (T) States