Windows 7 Kills Battery

Wednesday, February 03rd, 2010 | #Tags: battery, battery life, microsoft, Windows 7

When I first migrated to Windows 7 in it’s early BETA days, I was all too excited by the new stability, UI, features and quoted Battery life improvement. But, all this came with a bad [practical] news: I saw serious reduction in battery life.

The battery backup reduced from 2.5hrs to merely 1hr. I believed this was due to the the heavy Nvidia GT m230 GPU (Windows 7 doesn’t support NVIDIA Powermizer which reduces battery usage by lowering the clock). But very soon, all other Operating Systems started to mimic Windows 7.

This didn’t end here.

Recently, it became worse from bad when Laptop battery was totally dead. The battery backup went literally down to zero. After couple of days, [I don't know why] battery came back to life but with reduced life. The same battery that used to have 1hr of juice, started giving me no more than 10 minutes.

I tried Ubuntu, XP, everything, it was all the same, max battery backup was 15 minutes. I thought it could be manufacturer’s fault, but I was so wrong, the fact is: Windows 7 destroys your battery, permanently.

A very long thread on Microsoft’s support site dedicated to Windows 7 battery problems kicked off in early June 2009.

Microsoft claimed that the problem was in the Windows 7 tool that decided when the battery had been drained, or was unable to hold a charge.

“We are investigating this issue in conjunction with our hardware partners, which appears to be related to system firmware (BIOS), The warning received in Windows 7 uses firmware information to determine if battery replacement is needed.”

While some users on that thread agree with Microsoft that the warnings are spurious, others believe that the new operating system has permanently crippled their batteries.

“I have tried charging the battery while the computer is off or in another OS, and it does not work,” said someone identified as “DanLee81″ today. “It will charge for a few minutes, then stop. The battery will say it’s full when it actually only has a few minutes of charge, and when you take out the A/C, it will either last for a few minutes, or completely shut off your laptop. This behavior happens in all [OSes] after Windows 7 damages the battery, not just within Windows 7.”

Another one, from Russ Latham claims:

It seems that after Windows 7 has damaged your battery, it doesn’t matter what OS you use. The solution is, obviously, don’t use Windows 7 at all. Not even once, unless you’re prepared to shell out money for a new battery. What a shame. I really liked Windows 7 but now I’m using Linux on my new laptop (with 2nd battery!). I can’t afford to buy a new laptop batteries all the time.

Clearly, 100s of users can’t be wrong. The damages are indeed permanent- batteries underperformed, even after they abandoned Windows 7 and returned their notebooks to running Windows XP or Vista, or switched to Linux.

“Rolling back does not work either,in another message on Tuesday. I feel rip[ped] off!”

Situation is much more complex than What Microsoft thinks it is.

Almost all users using Notebooks from Acer, Dell, HP, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba have reported problems. Most have seen battery-life reduction 66%. That means 1/3rd the battery life.

I hope they do something about it fast, or it won’t be far when people get their say in consumer courts, suing the company for billions.

Update: Why windows 7 Appears to kill Battery?

In my case, The battery didn’t even meet it’s recharge cycles. It’s hardly 1 year old with < 80 Full discharges and <30 half discharges and a typical battery has 200-300 charge cycles (minimum). Even on brand new laptops life reduced to 1/3rd within 6 months.

The problem is Win 7 uses twice the power from the battery and hence twice the current (I). It’s said that when you deplete a Li-Ion battery at twice the Current (I), life cycle decreases by more than 2x times.

So if a battery had 300 charges, it would come down to 150 or so. But to make it worse, Win7 reports battery inaccurately, which reduces it further.

The reason for double the battery usage is Aero + Windows 7 SuperFetch.

Have you faced a similar issue? Let us know.

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Category: Windows 7

#Tags: battery, battery life, microsoft, Windows 7 | Author: Taranfx

memory card reader

This article is like exclaiming that my [insert powerful muscle car here] ruins my tires! Yes perhaps it has more power. Duh. Or maybe you have a lead foot. Duh. Perhaps there's something about W7 that uses more cpu, did you think it could be all the new visual features?

user

Why if battery is 100% and you connect to ac it will be un charge state? that's annoying, if it reports 99% full and connected to ac it must not charge!!

sedat

yeah, indeed I had the same problem , battery life went t o merely 30 min. from 1hr and half, that happened when I went from vista to windows 7,rolled back to vista but battery remains weak

MCP

I can also confirm this as true. I was getting 2 hours out of my HP Pavilion DV2404 with Windows Vista, and after installing Windows 7 it immediately dropped to less than 30 minutes.

Worst part is, Microsoft is playing dumb saying "nothing to see here, not our problem", presumably until they quietly push out a Windows update.

jessicaKlose

I'm guessing Windblows has a very flaky badly programmed interface between it and the bios. I just bought a compaq, declined the lisence and installed linux and now it gives a red screen every time it is booted stating it was shutdown due to overheating which was never the case. This tells me micky mouse is trying to do some flaky communicating with the bios by sending some message when it is shut down correctly and when the bios does not recieve the message, it flakes out which is probably the case with the batteries as well. If it does not recieve the message, the battery life suddenly goes to ZERO in the bios all because windows is evil.

I might be wrong.
Palm pre batteries

Tom

Yes, I can confirm it is true that Windows 7 ruins your battery. A year ago my battery died as well after using the beta version of Windows 7. Now it takes 10 mins before Windows shuts down (even after switching back to Vista). I thougt it was just coincidence and just had a weak battery, until I read this...

Metaldyne

Windows 7 killed my battery. Before I upgraded from Vista, I was getting battery perfomance as new (8 month old laptop). After a week, with windows 7, my battery was dead.

Vidmav

After reading this, i understood, why battery of my Lenovo V200 died... It was holding ~2 hours with winXP, but after i have installed W7 on November of 2009, batteries capacity came to 15-20min in 2 months. In January, i have ordered new battery, still waiting for it to arrive, but now I'm not sure, if to install it on my notebook, or sell it, as at the end, it will be killed by W7... Do you know, how long i can store the battery on the shelf, not to get it demaged? As third option would be, to wait for solution, from MS.

Guest

It may be true. I've had my laptop since July 2009 with Vista and I got 4.5-6 hours on the 6-cell. Upgraded to Windows 7 in late December 2009 and as of last week, the battery had degraded to 59%. No matter how I charge or recharge it, I don't think any battery could degrade so much in a span of 1-2 months.

Luckily, I'm still under Lenovo's one year battery warranty and already received a replacement. I wonder if I can reinstate Vista on my machine.

Ali

I faced this problem as well and my lab top battery is dead it just give me less than 10 minutes
I used a program claims to double the battery but nothing happen same problem. Battery is gone

Sergio

I have the same problem. I installed the RC back then when Vista was giving headaches due to it's poor performance. Immediately, my battery life went from 3hrs to around 1hr. At the moment, i can only leave it for like 9 mins before the battery dies. I actually thought this was a just an unhappy coincidence :(. Is there anyway to make Microsoft responsible for this? The way i see it. They owe me a new battery.

ihsantr

Hi, i've a similar problem too.. When i've migrated to the 7beta, my battery life was about 1 hour. A few days after 7 started to warn me to change the battery. And the battery life reduced to 20 min. Nowadays it cant hold any charge above 5 mins. So i removed the battery and started to work with plug-in. I cant say win7 drains the battery, but i'm sure that there are some bugs on power management issues.

DanLee81

Don't forget LG!!

Edwin Martin

That's funny. Now the open source-types start a FUD-campaign against Microsoft.

joemamasdfsdf

stfu. I have an hp dv7 and it gets about 2 hours battery life consistently for more than a month.

Topsi Kret

This is FUD! I bet the one who wrote this is a linux fanboy.

technosis

I've seen a steady decline in battery power since I upgraded to Windows 7 from Vista. Disabling the fancy interface options doesn't seem to make a difference. I went from an average battery life of 4 hours to a measly 1 hour. It's obvious that this has something to do with how the operating system utilizes the battery, but there is something off about the whole situation. I'm no hardware expert, engineer or scientist but it seems like we make continual and fast progress in most other aspects of personal computing technology. Why is it that battery and power seems only to limp along in comparison? It seems like there would be a lot of money in developing a power storage solution that meets the demands of the latest technology.

proassets

i purchased an hp notebook with windows 7 and the battery draining is ALWAYS a problem. Battery life is no more than one hour tops! Glad I found this thread.

Geof

interesting -- I use a MacBook Pro, and boot into Windows 7 every so often. I wonder if this affects me since (I'm assuming) my system firmware would be different...

I guess my question would be "what are PC manufacturers doing to their firmware, which is presumably aimed at Windows users, that's causing an issue with Win 7?"

sane user

this is total bullsh**, how can an os destroy the battery?? if u r battery is really f***ed it must be cos it has passed its no of recharge cycles.. dont blame such stuff on ur OS..

Taranfx

I understand your concern: OS cannot "kill" battery.
In my case, The battery has not met it's recharge cycles. It's hardly 1 year old with < 80 Full discharges and <30 half discharges and a typical battery has 200-300 charge cycles (minimum).
Even on brand new laptops life reduced to 1/3rd within 6 months.
The problem is Win 7 uses twice the power from the battery and hence twice the current. It's said that when you deplete a Li-Ion battery at twice the Current (I), life cycle decreases by more than 2x times.
So if a battery had 300 charges, it would come down to 150 or so. But to make it worse, Win7 reports battery inaccurately, which reduces it further.

Brian

That may be true, but to quote an assertion that W7 can kill your batter if you use it even once is total bs. Batteries are consumables, the more you use them, the quicker they wear out.

This article is like exclaiming that my [insert powerful muscle car here] ruins my tires! Yes perhaps it has more power. Duh. Or maybe you have a lead foot. Duh. Perhaps there's something about W7 that uses more cpu, did you think it could be all the new visual features?