A test can reveal the current status of a laptop battery and its overall health. The directions for testing, are presented here.
A laptop’s portability is made possible by its rechargeable battery. The source of power problems in this device is, therefore, inevitably linked with it. Before you repair the battery, to solve the power problems or replace it, you must be sure that it is indeed the reason for power shortage. Some basic testing can help you ascertain that.
Normally, a lithium ion based battery lasts for two to three hours after a full recharge. Of course, the time for which a recharged one lasts, depends on the energy consumption and the applications being run too.
If you are using devices like the webcam and DVD drive, the power is certainly going to be consumed faster. Brighter the screen, more is the electricity required. Taking all these facts into consideration, the battery life can vary over a wide range.
If your laptop’s standalone time has lowered to a few minutes, chances are that you have serious problems with the battery. In such a case, you should immediately go for a test to ensure that it is indeed the source of the power shortage problem.
For testing, you really do not need any advanced software or physical device. Through simple logic, you can decide if it is indeed the culprit. Here are two tests that can help you ascertain its working condition.
Testing Batteries
To test the battery, you need to check its charge retentivity and voltage when charged fully. The trick is to identify the battery condition through simple logic of elimination. A simple way of checking charge retentivity is going through the monitoring mechanism of the disk operating system. It can show you the charge percentage.
However, there is no internal troubleshooting mechanism that can identify the cause of an abnormally fast discharge. Here is how you can check it through testing.
Remove Laptop Battery and Run On Direct Power
Locate the battery bay at the back of the laptop, open it, and remove the battery. Connect the power adapter and make the laptop work on directly-fed electric power. If it works fine in this mode, then you may have a bad battery. In some cases, the battery might be okay, but you may have a problem with the charging device which has lost its efficiency.
If the laptop still doesn’t perform well, after direct power input, then there is an internal problem in the laptop that is causing the power loss. You may have to contact a computer technician or the manufacturer.
Replace With Another Battery to Check
Another thing that you could do is replace the current battery, charge the new one, and see what happens. If the charge again runs out, the culprit is not the battery, but a problem with the internal circuitry. If the laptop functions well and the charge lasts, you clearly have a defective battery.