some concerns and worry about my battery wear

i am a happy alienware m17x owner since july 2012
had few niggles here and there(nothing big)

one thing i am worried about is my battery wear
73%!!
i know that alienwares are not known to be marathon runners, but still
is it normal to have degraded this much in 1.5 years?

i used to run it few days at a stretch, connected to power, for my downloads
could it have affected the battery? doesnt it re route the power, skipping the battery when its full?

just worried about it

and where can i get spare batteries in India?(my laptop is from US, my cousin got it for me)
Dell India is hopeless for spare parts, couldnt even get/buy 3d glasses from them.

 

Some batteries will last longer, some will degrade quicker.
Couple of factors are deciding about that, like how often you use it, how do you store it, and at what charge level you store it, and some other factors that have minor effect...

Your battery has 73% of designed capacity remaining, it means, your wear level is 27%, and not 73%.

When you have it plugged in the battery will charge to 100% and then system will allow it to drain a bit, couple %( like 98% ), then after some while system will auto charge it back to 100%

So some batteries will last for 5 years, some 2 years, and if you treat them really bad, not even 1 year of usage will cause the wear to exceed 50%

Your wear level is on OK level to me.


I would not worry about it anyways, are you taking your laptop anywhere ? or it just stays at home ?

A good idea is to extend the warranty on any alienware, i do not know about battery, maybe the battery itself has only 1 year warranty as an accessorize, anyways, extend your warranty if you can, repairs might cost you a lot.

 

Your wear level isn't too bad, but I've definitely seen better. You could check whether you have options in your bios to reduce future wear. Precisions have those and if I recall correctly, the m17x also uses a phoenix bios, so the options might be in there too.

My previous laptop had a defective battery and wear was at over 75% in about a year, yours is still within "acceptable" limits I would say, but at the upper end of the limit. I would have expected to see less wear on a battery that isn't even two years old, but it could definitely be worse than that.

 

That's normal and expected; it's just how batteries work. Same thing with cell phones.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

yeah, sorry about that, my battery capacity is now 73% of original
i rarely take it out sometimes, probably once or twice a month to my college for fifa multiplayer

my warranty expired around september 2013
do i have to get a new one or get it extended?

 

IIRC Dell and Alienware only cover batteries for the first year anyway, only Dell business models offer 3 year warranty on batteries and they are expensive. Buying an extended warranty wouldn't cover the battery regardless.

 

I normally tell people if you have over 10% or over wear in the first year contact the manufacturer and try to get the battery replaced, but you need to have some warranty remaining to do this.

John.

 

If user has 3-4 charge cycles a day, 10% wear would be...within normal boundaries I think, for which manufacturers would not cover 10% year level. Of course, UK might do things differently, when we handle battery warranty claims, we could only send it out unless it was excessive wear, like 30-40% within the first year.

 

For a constant use pattern that wear is normal.

 

Here are some tips to take care of your battery.

 

a big thanks to all you guys
really appreciate the quick responses and the suggestions

 

watch this video Video here

has some cool tips on how to have a good battery life.