Long term charging issue

Sounds like you've gotten good service from it. The simplest thing I can say is that I've never seen a battery for Notebooks/Laptops carry any warranty beyond a year. I have more than a few older Notebooks and most have some battery use available but a few never more than about 2 hours running time, okay for me but since I don't have any money in these rehabbed machines I just keep them around as still too good to go to landfill. There will come a time specific batteries will no longer be available. I have given a few to families that had a need for home schooling but they are not used as portables.

clayto,

Read my next post before this one in order to save yourself some time.

Please run this but using a convenient folder of your own in place of my D:\Desktop

Code:

powercfg /batteryreport /output D:\Desktop\battery_report.html /Duration 1

and post these two results from under the heading Installed batteries

• Design capacity
• Full charge capacity

It is the comparison of these two results that indicates how worn out your battery is.

If batteryreport fails to run [which it can do on some older computers], you can use these two commands in an Admin command window to get an energy report instead but there is much more dross to wade through to find the two important parameters.
- Again, use a folder of your own in place of D:\Desktop
- The point of the CD command is to change working folders so that the report is saved somewhere convenient.

Code:

CD /D D:\Desktop
PowerCfg -energy -duration 0 -output EnergyReport.html

Notes
1 I have never used any third-party utilities for this measurement. I do not know what your NirSoft result means.
2 Do not waste a single breath on 'cycle count'. On the basis of experience with my own computers & numerous threads in TenForums I have concluded that this factor is meaningless [it certainly does not mean the equivalent number of charge-discharge cycles].

Denis

clayto,

I have just tried NirSoft BatteryInfoView myself for the first time.

1 The entry BatteryHealth gives the comparison I asked about so you can just tell me what that is instead of running the PowerCfg utility.
2 I have no idea at all what Current capacity (in %) is supposed to mean whilst plugged in [it is the inverse of the BatteryHealth entry]. Whilst running on battery power, it is the value of current charge to the maximum charge that the battery is currently thought to be capable of [the same value that Windows displays in the Taskbar Notification area for battery charge].
3 The Current Capacity Value entry is meaningless when plugged in.
4 The Number of charge/discharge cycles entry is meaningless.

Denis

I also have a computer [a Chuwi tablet-with-keyboard] that reports its battery Full Charge Capacity being greater than its Design Capacity. My conclusion is that the designer / production engineer fiddled things and that I can therefore not rely on any data about the battery.

You seem to be in the same boat.

Unless you have kept the computer on AC power for the whole time, your battery will have worn out to some extent.
Even if you have kept the computer on AC power for the whole time, your battery may have worn out to some extent anyway [my own battery records vary from year to year and I cannot pin down a reliable result for this case].

I do not think that you are shutting your computer down at night. Your description matches hibernation / sleep rather than shutdown.
- A computer that has been shutdown has no mechanism except the power button for being turned on.
- You can investigate shutdown / sleep / hibernate records using Event viewer.
- As an initial step, check Control panel, Security & maintenance, Maintenance, Automatic maintenance - Change maintenance settings, clear the checkbox for Allow scheduled maintenance to wake my computer at the scheduled time.

I do not have any well-thought-through advice for you, only generalisations.

- Your description of your computer's power behaviour does sound to me like an insufficient power supply so I think it worth checking, if possible, that your power source [including the cable] is working correctly. My own tablet's one produces over 3Amps output current and the maker says that anything less than would mean that it could run the computer but would not charge at the same time. You report your charging current as 2 Amps; is that from your specs?
- I've seen threads in which people have said they solved some power/battery problems by removing the Device manager, Battery entries then letting Windows re-detect and reinstall them. The implication being that they must have had drivers that had become corrupted. Before adopting such a solution yourself, I'd suggest searching the forum for battery problems to see if there is any comparison between their cases and yours.

Removing drivers for less well-supported computer brands such as ours is more tense than it is for mainstream ones. I understand that Cube support is very limited but, again, I'm just going by what I've read. [Chuwi support is shameful, they cannot even get their hardware list right]

- Perhaps you should get an external powerbank. I have one that can keep my tablet going for as long as its own battery can. Powerbanks come in all sizes [and weights]. I got, for example only, www.amazon.co.uk/12000mah-External-Portable-Powerful-Flashlight/dp/B01ECRJWVE and I am happy with it. It is light enough to put in my pocket when I'm on the train so I can just keep the powerbank plugged in to the computer if I use it en route.
- You could play around with the Power plan battery settings to see if you can find a critical battery level that is high enough to ensure you can reach hibernation when your battery starts sulking. But, from your description, you are too far gone for this to be any real use.

Denis

A Li-ion cell battery has a nominal voltage around 3.7 VDC. This voltage remains almost the same until it reaches end of charge and then it drops fast.
Batteries are charged with a current set point with a voltage feedback trigger.
When you plug in the charger, voltage jumps (almost instantly) from default (3.7) and begins to increase too fully charge at 4.2VDC when the charger is shut ed down to prevent damage to the battery.
At full charge, when you begin to use, voltage drops very fast to default and also rises very fast to fully charge 4.2VDC (if the battery is charged) when charger is connected.
Old batteries work the same way (same voltages) The only difference is the time it takes to discharge (fast) and charge (slow).
Lithium-ion battery - Wikipedia

I would say that is time to replace the battery. Defective battery can damage the internal charger and then the only solution is to replace the MoBo.

Dick,

Your diagram makes sense for an old battery. {Cycle count is, as always, meaningless.}

Personally, I always work on the basis that a battery replacement should be considered once the Full charge capacity drops below 50% of the Design capacity.
- There is no law that forces the battery to degrade nicely.
- For all anybody knows, your battery might simply continue to be less & less useful over time until you finally get fed up with it.
- For all anybody knows, your battery might be degrading in a manner that creates localised hotspots during charging i.e. the battery might be a fire risk.
Personally, I'd remove that battery now [even if I was not going to get a replacement for some time].

All the best,
Denis