Battery Information - We Desperately Need YOUR Help!

I have proof of that. My HP Pavilion notebook. I had it for 2.5 years, and both batteries still have over 90% of their life. I used them every day, normally to below 20%. Do you want to guess how long my V6j would last doing that? Not even a month, but both of those Li-Ion batteries are fine, still do this day another year later. How do all of you skeptics that say this battery wear is normal explain that? Because it's no anomaly.

You can scream this until you are blue in the face and suffocate due to lack of oxygen, its not true for the V6j. The advertised battery life that I remember was 4 hours. I get 4.5 regularly (with a new battery), and now that wear is kicking in again, I am close to 3 hours, and soon it will be two hours. This is a problem. Try to tell me that a new battery should half its life in 3 months. If you won't say that, then tell me why I shouldn't push Asus to fix this?

 

Oh yeah Caleb, no doubt I agree with you on that, I have seen so many Toshiba laptops that are YEARS old and still run like they have 0% wear, is puzzles me. But besides the practical knowledge we have that batteries do last long, I personally don't have theoretical or any application data to refer to, specifically the ACPI if we are going blame that.

No offense or anything, no one should really care about what a Company State's the estimated battery life and weight is suppose to be. End Users are the real tester here, and sometimes we can even be the product testers because some companies just push out laptops without even doing quality tests and stuff. No brand in particular comes to mind, but I do remember the MBP first generation!!!

In my opinion those who don't do their research and complain that they don't get X amount of hours of battery life like said on a brand's website is just being naive...the reviews here are the BEST all around, a huge database of review of TRUE, REAL information in which the public can REALLY use.

Why do you think I wrote such an extensive review on my laptop, because I know I will be using it as a resource for myself in the future to compare it with, but also to help others.

Before I got it, I knew already that I was going to experience the battery wear problem because mselley from NBF.com already stated he's been through 2 batteries. Either way I wanted the V1JP and I am willing to work through this problem. As previously stated, I think I may have found a solution!

Caleb, just like a recommended earlier to another member, please turn OFF the Critical alarm and do a battery life test to see if your battery is truly wearing out or if it is the ACPI acting up.

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

Dude that is like saying "my 1965" camaro never had trainy problems but my 2006 lexus has its trainy replaced ever year. You can call asus and replace the battery as many times as you want. there are only a few battery manufs in the world. just because your 2 year old hp had an awesome battery does not mean your brand new hp will have the same. Just becuase one laptop had awesome batteries 2 years ago does not mean that it is a freak of nature for another laptop 2 years later not to be so fortunate. your v6j obviosly has a problem with the battery based on what you say. why dont you call asus and exchange the battery or not buy asus period and take your chances with another brand?. i am not telling you whats broken and not. i am telling you that your definition of "normal battery" should not be your 2 year old hp. what was normal 2 years ago may not be the same today. How many hours does your 2 year old Hp last on the perfect two year old battery? Why does every single laptop i see that comes through my doors for repair, hp, dell, gateway for the most part the batteries are all dead if they are 2 years old or more? why?

 

OK, let me break down Eddie's post, which in my opinion has a few good arguments to tackle.

1) Batteries are not alike, what happened in the past is the past.
2) The HP battery should not be a benchmark for comparing today's batteries.
3) Use your battery warranty because its there for a reason.
4) Stating that HP, Dell, Gateway laptops breakdown more, but also have dead batteries.

These points do raise some eyebrows and insight into what you have experienced. That's fine but let me ask you this.

1) What is your definition of a good battery (normal). How much wear % per month or year?
2) What if this problem exceeds the 1 year battery and the fact that I will have to replace my battery every 2 months because Asus can't solve this issue of abnormal wear.

Aside, I don't believe my V1JP in particular is exhibiting REAL battery wear, if we assume the ACPI is responsible for sourcing this data to the programs we use then it is the Culprit, but it still has to be fixed because all of our software now gives incorrect information regarding Charge %, wear %, battery life and more.

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

In my opinion
if after 6 months of using the battery everyday (doesnt have to be full discharge could be half or a qaurter or even 10% discharge) the battery life is 50% or more of what it was in its new state then i am happy. Now obviously if you dont use the battery every single day then i would expect that to last longer. This is not based just on asus laptops. Given the obvious that i only sell asus. i actually do service and support other brands like dell hp and whatever. I am not doubting that an hp battery can last so many years. it is refreshing to see that a battery can last 2 years even if it is used rarely. What do i expect from my notebook. As long as i can get 50% life by end of year i am happy. I do not use any utils for this. i dont care what the wear level is neither should any other rational person. I care about how long my battery lasts. if 1 monthy after i got the battery i get 3 hours out of it. then 1 year later i get 2-2.5 hours out of it then this is right by me because i use my battery maybee 2-3 times a week tops. If i used it every single day i would not complain if wear is 50% after 6 months

 

Why would you settle for 50%? If you have serviced so many computers, you should know that 90% of them or more will last significantly longer than that. Also, my previous computer was a good example, because it was a pretty main stream computer. If it lasted, so did lots of other computers. Why shouldn't my Asus? Furthermore, I don't believe that the battery is actually "bad", I think it is faulty code. It could be code in the computer, in the BIOS, or ACPI. These are things that Asus should fix. I am not asking for a multi-billion dollar recall. I am asking that one of their techs spends a few weeks developing a proper fix.

 

A fix in this matter should be carry out so eveyone will be happy with it Thanks for all the fact in this subject, although 1st day of CNY, I still manage to log-in & read lol.......

 

I think some people here are missing the point.

* We know that we can ask for the batteries to be replaced, we know that.
* The problem DOES NOT lie with the batteries, but the notebooks. This is seen when the PC's run after 0% battery life if standby is turned off. This one fact clearly shows that its not the actual battery at fault.

We're not arguing over advertised battery life, We know what life we got from a new battery. We just simply don't want to have to constantly request new batteries as this causes downtime and costs US the consumer money.

You can add the A6vc to the list as thats the notebook I've had issues with. I've already had 1 battery replaced and the new one was already at 2% wear after only one discharge and charge.
I've put my battery from my other Asus (old A6km) into it and guess what, it wore the battery by 1% after a discharge and charge.

My A6T /Z92T doesn't have a issue at all, I've had that battery for around 5 months now and its fine.

its so BIOS/ACPI related... and I'm sure its not a hard bug to fix as not all notebooks show this problem.

@FiReWoLf, I'd still rather have an Asus with a battery issue than a HP

Insane

 

@Insane, I understand that. I want an V1Jp as well, but after reading with review from MysticG, I paused till ASUS fixed the problem. No doubt, V1Jp is much better looking & better specs that my HP lol....

 

Where do you get this info from? One of the most popular things we sell locally are batteries for other non asus models. It does not matter what the brand is. there is a reason why asus has 1 year warranty and 1 year only, and other brands even less. Batteries inherently are #1 replaced item in a computer. HP knows this, dell knows this asus knows. optical drives then hard drives to follow. hinges video cards motherboards ram. cpu's hardly ever. I dont care what joe shmo said about his hp that is awesome and lasted one year without any wear. You cant judge things that way. I will give you one fine example. Asus z70va. You look around when it was produced and being sold it was the most popular and most wanted product. Even now you will find no bad reviews. Only a year later i will tell you that this model was the biggest best looking lemon asus ever made. The only thing that worked perfectly was the battery in it. If you take information in the forums as evidence then i feel bad for you. A battery is made to wear the first time you use it. if you sit there and look at some meter that tells you the wear you are going to drive your self and other people insane. As i said before. Remove the stinking meters and use the battery. If by the end of the year or by 6 months or by 3 months you get less then 50% life its time to replace it or whenever you feel. When you read about laptops and limited warranties. what is the warranty limited to? The BatterY!!!!

 

ahh memories. my z70va is still perfect. both the main and modular show <5% wear after a year. it's probably cuz of this that I expect so much from my R1 battery.

 

Eddie -

See, you just are missing the point completely. The battery is fine. It works, it lasts and all of that. The problem lies in code in the computer that allows it to use the battery properly. Get that through your head and help us, instead of arguing with yourself over this. We are all saying this is a code fix that Asus needs to release, you have yet to tackle that. Do that, and it will be worth my time to even acknowledge what you are saying.

 

Thanks for your input Eddie, it is nice to see how things are on your side. However, as Caleb stated you are now missing the point of what we are stating.

From my experience of my V1JP:

Here's what works

• The battery does NOT have wear (yet)
• I do get my 3 hours of battery life (if I turn off Critical Alarm)
• All Software programs are working correctly based on the information received from the ACPI

Here's the problem

• 99% of Users have Critical Alarm ON
• The software battery wear % affects the Alarm causing the notebook to turn off prematurly
• The ACPI for some reason loves to give wear % when it is not suppose to
• There's a bug or coding error on Asus that needs to be fixed

How would you feel if you had your critical alarm ON, which all users do have, and your wear % so high! Imagine not knowing that your wear % is SOFTWARE based, not hardware (battery). Imagine all those R1F users just found out my solution which is to turn OFF the critical alarm, then they would have their battery life back up to 4 hours.

Even with my solution, there is a problem, Windows Battery miser and all other programs still state the wrong numbers for current capacity, battery wear and others, meaning there's a coding problem.

Just like others here experience this problem, all we need is a coding FIX to the ACPI (I am still assuming that this is the problem since the only other thing we can blame is the BIOS).

Also it would be nice to have this fixed so that I DO get the CORRECT battery life read our from Window's battery miser and charge.

I hope you know understand what I am trying to argue (and others).

FYI: TURN OFF CRITICAL ALARM AND THIS WILL FIX YOUR PROBLEM!

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

That post was a nice summary! But its still a cover up as opposed to a fix.


I'm really interested in how the resellers on this forum are very keen to say there are no problems, (only a few isolated models)

I guess it just shows which resellers can be counted on after taking your hard earned $$.

At the very least they could flick ASUS an email or give them a call to look into it, if they care about their customers.


Man if my reseller turned their back on my problem I wouldn't go away silently.



Insane

 

Ok, I will bring my own (late) contribution to the discussion.

First, our MAIN POINT. I see it's still not clear for a lot of persons posting on this thread.

The battery charge level (or wear level, notebook lifetime on battery) is reported incorrectly to Windows. Therefore, Windows alarms go off, and the notebook is turned off, early, when the battery still holds useful charge. Therefore, we are not using the entire capacity of our battery.

Now this is clearly a problem; I don't see how one could argue against this statement. We do not accept to stand idle and accept this as a normal state of affairs; rather, we try to have the problem solved. We have identified several possible culprits, and ASUS can use them in their research: faulty ACPI code in BIOS, faulty battery firmware, faulty ACPI Windows drivers, physical fault in entire series of batteries.

To clarify some misconceptions:

1. " LiIon laptop batteries should never be discharged to reported 0% charge"
Wrong. Laptop batteries include firmware that is monitoring their state, and never allows the battery to be discharged to dangerous levels.

2. " There is no issue here, battery wear is not related to lifetime on battery."
Incorrect. After the wear increases sufficiently that its effect on lifetime become visible above the variation in lifetime due to notebook load, the expected lifetime on battery coroborates the wear level. I.e., I had 4hrs lifetime on full charge in my V6J originally, when the battery is 30% worn I have 2hrs 45mins. So, the battery wear indicator is "reliable" in the sense that it gets the data from the same source as Windows. Which does not mean the data is correct.

Also, see the following point. The reading on NB lifetime on battery is unreliable, because it varies wildly with the discharge rate, i.e. with the load level on the notebook. The lifetime on battery is so uncertain due to this that it can't be used to reliably assess battery state until the battery is more than 20-30% worn. So up to those levels, we need to rely on battery wear indicators.

Arguable statements and my response:

3. " Even if battery is losing a few percent of charge on each full discharge, it's not an issue, it's acceptable for nowadays batteries."
No, it is not. The manual says if I do a full discharge every day, I can expect the battery to last for a year. If on my V6J I do a full discharge every day, I can expect it to last for a month.

Moreover, our experience with other batteries says that the 1year estimate is a conservative one; batteries typically last longer than that. Therefore, our problem is even more accute.

4. " One shouldn't trust MobileMeter, trust the battery meter in Windows"
True to an extent, noone has proven MobileMeter/NHC/etc. is safe and reliable. Then again, it's all we have. Windows does not report wear levels. See above for why we need wear levels, lifetime on battery is not a reliable indicator in the early stages of the problem.

Also, I use MobileMeter because it only takes readings therefore it's very unlikely that it really interferes in any way or causes damage. Not impossible - just unlikely.

5. " Accept this situation as normal, and buy a new battery; if you afforded a 2KUS$ notebook, why not buy a 100US$ battery?"
This is ridiculous, of course. When I paid those money, I was paying for a notebook which was warranted (not guaranteed) to work for 2 years, with a battery warranted to work for 1 year. I expect no less, and I demand no less.

6. " Just change your battery, that's what the warranty is there for."
True, if the problem were fixed by changing the battery. It is not. I have changed three times battery and motherboard. The problem is still there. See top of post, it's there because most likely it is firmware-related.


MysticGolem: About fixing the issue by turning off alarms at 5%/3% whatever. This is not a fix, it is a workaround. We expect a fix from ASUS.

(sorry, I said this to "Caleb" earlier; actually, MysticGolem made the suggestion)


===================

PS: Sorry for the delay, I don't have an Internet connection at home (oh, Stone Age person! you will say; I have enough computer and internet during weekdays, thank you very much, on weekends I like to take a break ).

 

Its a half-baked workaround that I found with my own testing of this problem. I personally don't like it wholly, but it the ONLY option I (we) have left, and it gives me my 3 hours of battery life.

The downside is that you will never know when your out of battery life because your Charge will say 0% yet your laptop is still running for X amount of time.

Even if your battery gets drained, it STILL goes into hibernation, I have tested this, I left a bunch of documents, browser on, let the battery fully drain. I put in the AC plug and turn my notebook on, and viola, everything was still there.

Meaning there is some sort of fail safe with the battery and bios or ACPI, I found this as to be very nice!

I am still awaiting for Justing at PP to reply and send (if not already) the modular bay battery I asked for, so I can also test this and hopefully won't have to take my AC adapter to school with me on 3 out of 4 days of school.

PS: If you don't TURN off the Critical Alarm Windows WILL follow that Software Generated (Fake) wear % and shut off prematurely, meaning there will still be a charge left on the battery you can still use.

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

What kind of battery life can I expect of an W3J with a T2400 CPU @ 1.83 GHz (WiFi on + office work) ? I ask this because, here in the Netherlands, I can buy one really cheap ( 1070 Euros). Very tempting. Afterwards I could upgrade it with a T7200.

 

V1jp
There is 0% wear after a little less than 3 months. I actually have slightly more capacity when fully charge than designed.

Good luck with your investigation.

 

That's nice...

Yep, batteries typically store a bit more charge when new than their specified value.

 

Ok, I may have same contribution to this thread. I sell used laptops, let me repteat it, second hand notebooks so i think i have some first hand experience with batteries. Here's the proof, a moderator can remove this if is not ok:

http://laptopuridevanzare.blogspot.com/

Back to the isue here:

1) Mobile meter is the program that i use and it seems quite reliable. His reading are identical with the reading of IBM's Thinkpads Maxilimizer utility if nothing else (at least the numbers regarding "Desingned capacity" and Fully charged capacity"). Do you trust IBM software? I do.

2) Something is very abnormal with that wear level jumping 5% after one discharge / charge cycle. I never witnessed such phenomen with other laptop brands (I dont have experience with ASUS, i must admit).

3) I read and understood what a previous poster explaind about the wear level indicaded by software not beeing real. I found it interesting that that notebook could go on for an hour despite windows beliving the battery is 0% charged.This could be a battery decalibration and most laptop brand offer software to fix it. Maybe that machine has not one but two issues (battery wearing *and* battery decalibration) The fact that after shot down (hibernation not beeing enabled) the user could fire up the now charging laptop to find his work not lost is rather strage But than again: Most other laptops would shut down when the windows counter reads 0% and I never met a laptop that would hibernate without this option actually beeing enabled somewhere Nevertheless, this behaviour isn't what I'd call "desirable".

4) And another observation and i hope i won't offend anybody: I noticed that lower brand / no name laptops (like Acer, Asus, etc) and consumers class notebooks are more phrone to battery problems despite de fact that - usually - a notebook manufacturer doesn't actually makes batteries. On my desk is an early 2005 made Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook E8010 (corporate business class) with 0% wear level And my thinkpads can make an year long without losing one percent of their battery shape while the Acer sitting next to them can develop a bad / dead battery quite abruptly from misterious reasons (all computers beeing propely take care of).

PS: excuse my lousy english

 

Not being offended, I wish to say this.

I'm not sure how one would define "no-name", but surely ASUS notebooks are not "lower-brand". I don't know about the low-end ASUS notebooks, but the high-end notebooks simply blow away almost (if not all) of the competition. This is not necessarily in performance, because the central components (CPU, GPU) are standard, but in quality: build quality, mainboard quality (essential!! if you put high-quality components on a low-end mainboard, you'll get a significant performance drop), choice of components like screen, HDD, battery cells, custom components like keyboard or touchpad.

ASUS notebooks could be labeled "noname" since very few people (in many areas of the world) have heard of them.

I am sure that most batteries chosen by ASUS for the high-end models are close to 0% wear per year. I had one of those batteries for my M6Ne. And I can also bet that our batteries behave just like that - only that the charge is read wrongly by the OS, probably via buggy firmware.

"This could be a battery decalibration "

The problem described in this thread is not decalibration in the usual definition. I say that because the calibration procedure doesn't fix the problem, rather it makes it worse. The problem seems to be related to decalibration in the type of symptoms exhibited -- but it's unclear in what way the causes are related; they are most likely not related.

"Most other laptops would shut down when the windows counter reads 0%"

You mean, when the charge read by the BIOS reaches 0% (if you consider the situation where the Windows action is set to "None")

 

Ok so youre saying that all these used laptops 1 or 2 years old. battery meters claim that that there is 0% wear last the same time that they did a year ago? that is bs. just because meters say there is 0% wear does not mean that there is zero wear. the only way to find out how much wear there is, would be to duplicate the use and software as it was the first day out of the box. I have absolutely no doubt that there are many laptops which claim to have zero wear but inevitably last less then what they did first day out of the box. Please explain that away! Its a very simple scientific method. I DO NOT trust the readings of battery wear. Do you trust the readings in your gas tank of your car? brand new or not? i realize its not the same but you get where i am going with this.

 

I still believe these battery wear issues are due to the ATK0100 ACPI Utility driver. I updated the driver for my W3V and, after several weeks, my battery ware increased exponentially. My battery life was only 30 minutes and I was force to replace the battery. When my new battery arrived, I installed the ATK0100 ACPI Utility driver from my W3V Driver CD and the problem was resolved. See my thread for more information.

 

There is no such thing as a battery that lasts forever. they are designed to break down. They are suposed to break down. If after 1 year of use battery meter reads 0% wear then either you dont know how to read or obviosly the term battery wear is only as accurate as the reading in your gas tank

 

I came across this thread yesterday and thought I would try the suggestions on my Samsung X60plus, where I am also seeing excessive battery wear. Well, I thought it was excessive at 7% and less than 3 months old. So I left the battery to run down overnight. Then for good measure, I ran the battery calibration in the BIOS (doesn't Asus have this feature - it is completely separate to Windows ACPI). Anyway, today I have battery wear at 15%. So this problem is not just with Asus. I wonder if the batteries come out of the same factory?

John

 

Just because batteries can break down over time doesn't mean that the V6j user batteries should break down faster. Not to mention, I do trust my gas gauge, because at the very least it is consistent. I know that when it says empty, I am about to get stranded. I also know that when it says almost empty, it is a consistent 14-15 gallons to refill the 16 gallon tank. That said. taking measurements based on the wear percentage from mobilemeter and doing a little bit of math yields expected results. Maybe they aren't 100% accurate, but they are good enough for what we need to do, and that is to prove that there is something wrong and have Asus fix it.

 

I hate this problem. My notebook returned with it from the 4th RMA and with a loose keyboard in addition to that (bent keyboard plate due to rough removal).

I hate it. I am not going to do another RMA. No way. I want another notebook or my money back.

 

i was not talking about the v6j. It is common for a battery to break down. Obviously if you get half life out of your battery only a month after that is not normal. If you have 50% wear level it means nothing to me. I only care about run life. if you got your nb fresh out the box and it gave you 3 hours. then a month later it gives less. reinstall the windows and recreate the same thing you had a month back. if you dont get the same or close i would say that is not normal for a months use. I nor anyone else here should take a 0% or a 50% battery wear reading for anything more then it is. Judge with your own eyes. if you feel your battery wear is abnormal. restore your laptop to the way you had it the first day and see if you get the same life out of it

 

I fail to see how restoring could help here. It's not like the battery wear/charge/lifetime, whatever you want to call it, is stored in the Windows registry or in the BIOS settings. At least it shouldn't be. If it is, then I pity the programmer that thought of that "solution".

No, the battery wear, charge, lifetime, is reported ONLINE by the battery, while it is working.

So there is no reasonable way in which restoring / reinstalling would help in this issue.

 

restoring to original state means you get rid of the hacks and background apps and virus scans and all the other junk that works in the background and reduces the battery life. I am not telling you do do this so your battery wear reading. You should do this for an accurate battery life reading. You can also acomplish the same in safe mode i guess. You have to learn how to separate battery wear from actual life. In some cases the battery wear meter can be right on in others very off. My own 3 cell battery on my over 2 year old m5n has quite a bit of wear as i no longer get 2 hours out of it like i did out the box however after it reaches 0% the latp does not shut down infact it lasts about 5 more minutes. You put too much faith in utilities like mobile meter instead of your eyes. My whole point is that you started a thread about battery wear. Tell the people what you actually notice in terms of battery run time. battery wear is not an acurate measurement. There are hundreds and maybee thousands of people on this forum that have aging laptops that have worn batteries that say 0% wear. then the same ammount of people that have perfectly good batteries but have wear. I do not think battery wear should be used to judge the usefullness of a battery.

 

Nevermind battery wear, think of it as battery lifetime. I have argued in a message above that actually battery wear is a more accurate indicator than battery lifetime, but it's not more "reliable" in the sense of errorproof. But don't think of battery wear, think of battery lifetime.

I can assure you I know exactly what's running on my system (well, what Microsoft wants me to know, that is). And it is the same thing that was running on day 1. I know what my energy consumers are, I know what applications I am running and how much CPU they require. I can assure you my Windows is within 95% of the efficiency it had on the first day after installation. I have experience with these things.

While being sure of the things above, I can assure you that my Windows lifetime on battery is perfectly consistent with my wear level. I have experienced batteries dying more than 20% THREE TIMES on my V6J, and all of the three times Windows lost the corresponding amount of lifetime on battery.

So I am confident that reinstalling my system will not solve the problem. The problem goes deeper than that. I don't say all the people's problems with batteries are not unsolvable with a reinstall, and probably your advice is good for a general situation. I don't deny that.

But not for my situation.

Sorry, I'm very egocentric right now, after I have had my 2300 eur notebook returned the 4th time with the same stupid problem.

 

but i am not talking about you. I know you know your $hit. I am talking about everyone else who is fortunate to read this far and think that battery wear is a clear indication of the usefullness of their battery. it is not! In particular those who think that 0% wear means the battery is as good as it was the first day they got it years ago. That just does not happen and if it does its a record. .

 

I know, and as I said, your advice is good.

Sorry, I am monopolizing this topic. No more about my personal problem.

 

For this to be meaningful to Asus (as in "OMG you're right. We'll change battery suppliers ASAP."), you'd really have to run a configuration similar to this:

1. Buy 4 or 5 models of the notebook that supposedly has the battery wear problem.
2. Do not add any programs, make any mods, change any configurations, or remove any programs. Run them all straight out of the box.
3. Run the NBs at the exact same settings with no other programs running. Basically, they're test machines and not usable.
4. Recharge the batteries at the same voltage/amp rate.
5. Repeat for several months.

Oh, and the environmental variables would have to be the same (temp, humidity, etc.) for all the computers.

All of which is to say, that Asus probably doesn't care too much. They're not in the battery business. If it were a huge issue, they'd probably already be aware of it and change to a different battery manufactuer. The number of variables, as Eddie pointed out, among users makes this nearly impossible to isolate. One AV program has a different drain than another, someone runs their screen brighter than another, someone made some oddball change to Power4Gear that they forgot about and now complain about battery wear. Just too many potential other causes.

The idea that they have accidentally included some bad "code" somewhere that causes such a problem is highly unlikely. And, if you think there is, just do a clean install of the OS and don't install any of the drivers. Or switch to Linux.

In the overall scheme of business life, battery wear isn't an issue. Exploding batteries are an issue. If you think you have a bum battery, RMA it.

If you think Asus is out to screw you by giving you a battery that doesn't wear as well as you think it should, buy someone else.

 

The simple point i was trying to make is that battery wear in terms of % given by an application is as reliable as the reading in your cars gas tank. granted some cars have fairly reliable readers but all my cars in the last few years were off by atleast a few gallons. Evident by the arrow going over the max line and below the min line when i am driving on empty for the last 40 miles. Why people use programs like mobile meter is beyond me. it is obsesive compulsive and neorotic to install a program which tells you basically the same thing as windows built in meter. These programs actually drain the life of your battery if anything. I can understand installing notebookhardware control which basically does the same thing as power4gear. Lately i developed a better appreciation for p4g over nhc as it turns out nhc was making my laptop screwy. stop acting neurotic and stop monitoring your battery wear. you are making everyone else on this forum crazy. if you feel your battery life is not what it should be contact asus. to this day asus has one model with a known inherent bad battery that is the z71v. perhaps the v6j has a crappy battery. hard to say v6j was never as popular as z71v and certainly did not have close to 100% failure like z71

 

i think people are kinda missing the point.

originally, certain users of asus notebooks noticed that they their observed battery life was decreasing at a markedly fast pace (i.e. less time reported on windows battery meter, as well as other programs). thus, they dled programs like nhc/mobile meter/etc. to figure out what was going on. what they discovered was that the % wear seemed to correlate with the loss in real life battery time they were getting. some have sent in their batteries and even notebooks to get their motherboard replaced in an attempt to fix this issue.

however, it was recently discovered that if you turn off the critical alarm, you actually regain the battery time that was originally thought to be lost to battery wear. thus, it is not a problem with the battery, but a problem on reporting of the battery life (battery wear is not an issue!). what users are asking for is a fix so that windows battery meter, or any battery life reporting program, can report the proper battery life so that they can know when their battery is actually out of juice.

 

ejl is correct, this explains my experience with my V1JP, and could possibly the reason for most laptops out there experiencing simialr problems.

Once again let me break this down for everyone:

• 1) Wear % is most likely calculated by the ACPI (and might attribute to the BIOS).
  SPACE
• 2) Wear % calculated from programs like NHC, I have proof (somewhat) showing this.
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• 3) Windows Battery Miser also uses the ACPI data and matches all other 3rd party programs in charge %, battery wear % and battery life.
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• 4) My personal battery on the V1JP still last 3 hours which is exactly how I tested in my review, which I made on the first 2.5 days I got it, while writing.
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• 5) My battery and laptop is a total of exactly 2 moths old, showing 35% wear on all 3rd party programs.
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• 6) I have just recently formatted my computer to gain performance, and yes my laptop boots 30 seconds faster, and the Wear % went up from 30% to 35%.
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• 7) Battery Calibration is an interesting factor in which I also tried to figure out. It turns out this feature also uses the ACPI or Bios for Wear % too, which causes my Windows Battery Miser to still stated my battery life is only 2 hours and 15 minutes.
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• 8) The way I allowed my battery to get maximum life is to TURN OFF CRITICAL ALARM!!! If you don't, then Windows will use the software generated wear % to calculate battery life which is wrong.
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• 9) The problem with turning off the CRITICAL ALARM is that you will not be able to know when your notebook will turn off (hibernate) because all programs stop, they state 0% and 0 minutes including Windows Battery Miser.
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• 10) Asus needs to fix the ACPI or BIOS or both so that Windows at the very least get the correct values for Charge % and battery life.

Eddie no offense to you or anyone, but we are now not interested in REAL (hardware) battery wear, we are now interested in the FAKE (software) battery wear, since most of us have already, including me, proved that our batteries last longer than what Windows Battery Miser states, when you TURN OFF THE CRITICAL ALARM.

We know batteries will deteriorate, we know some can be abnormal, we know NHC can be wrong in measuring battery wear %, but people seem to mis understand the fact that Windows Battery Miser also uses the ACPI to get its values, and if the ACPI states 30% battery wear, Windows battery Miser will calculate that in, and give a much lower value in battery life.

For those who don't believe, they seem to argue:

• 1) Some state just use the laptop as is, everything is working fine, if you notice abnormal wear get it replaced.
• 2) Some state don't use 3rd party programs to calculate or use them at all, Windows Battery Miser is all you need.
• 3) Third Party Programs are the problem, causing an uproar regarding batteries.
• 4) It has nothing to do with coding or anything like that, it is just how you use the notebook.

I will be writing up an extensive review on my battery wear problem tomorrow to further prove my case, so that my information and the data cannot be inexcusable.


Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

Why would i be offended? you basically tried to proove my point. if i read your post correctly. your battery is fine but the software that reads wear/life is not. The next question.........is it possible that all you guys who use 3rd party software are in a way interfereing with acpi? it just seems strange that all the people who complain about battery wear (which you say is not an acurate reading) are the same people who use these 3rd party software. Just a thought i guess..

 

A little confused as to why you think you were offending me? that is basically what i was trying to say. if your battery wear reads 30% it does not mean that your battery lasts 30% less then it did on day one. Is this not what you just said or am i drowsy and confused?

 

Sorry made some adjustments to my post above, anyways to answer you directly.

If I uninstall NHC, which is what I primarily use for Battery Wear % and all my third party, programs, I bet you can guess what happens when I do another battery life test using Windows Battery Miser.

I am gonna pause here and give some options (30 minutes)

a) My battery life will still be 2 hours 15 minutes
b) My battery life will be 3 hours
c) My battery life will be 2 hours and 50 minutes because of natural wear on the battery itself due to time.

ANSWER THIS QUESTION in 2 PARTS, WITH AND WITHOUT CRITICAL ALARM
What would be the battery life of my notebook with it ON OR OFF?

I will answer your other post in 30 mins or less depending on when you answer this one. I know 2 answers are close to each other, because they have to be to show that I know how batteries work over time.

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

The 3rd Party programs are not causing the problem. I had this happening before I ever used one, and I can do a fresh install of Windows to show the same thing happens, not to mention you don't "install" MobileMeter, its an exe that you run.

Mystic, You will probably get 2:15 with the Alarm and 3 without it. Just my guess, cause I will get similar results with my V6j.

 

Can't say how much it lasted when it was brand new - but I'm taking a wild guess on this matter stating that the difference is minimal at best. All i can do it posting a shot of the manufacturing date sticker on this sucker and screenshot of that parameters as they are read by mobilemeter. And a battery doesn't reach the pick of it's capability on the first few charges, nevermind the first day of use

Two different eggs here. May I ask why did IBM released (a long time ago and continued to update it) an utility that basically show the same exact reading as MobileMeter? If those reading weren't reliable I can't see IBM provinding the software that ever thinkpad sold has installed by default.

I think that you are overreacting, if mobilemeter reads 50% wear you can bet that that battery is seriously affected and on its way down.

Restoring / cleaning windows or whatever won't change the readings of wear level showed by various software. You can switch a battery from one laptop to another those readings will be the same.

i'll get back with some screenes...

 

No as it Should NOT!
That is why mobile meter and battery wear means nothing. If you got macafee running in the back and a bunch of other crap and your battery is only lasting an hour at best how is mobile meter going to give you an acurate reading? if it reads 0% or 100% how will it give you an acurate reading if your practically at full load? There is no corelation beteen battery wear and battery life. Yes for a user that knows how and why it may but not all users are the same and certainly not all laptops are the same. I see laptops sent back with more bg processes running then both my server my desktop and my laptop put together. What can battery wear tell you in that case? Once again i am not talking specific here. this is an open forum and everyone who reads it should know that battery wear is not an indication of battery life or battery ability

 

This is just a blatant lie. BATTERY WEAR IS NOT A LIE, IT HAS MEANING! I had my battery replaced, put it in, wear is 0%, my laptop is running the same exact backup as when I first got the new battery (all programs installed, everything running, and I maintain it constantly), and now it is an hour less battery life. If I calculate the percentage of wear based on this information (this is purely based on Windows Meter), I get (3 hours remaining at 84%) 3.57 hours/4.5 hours = 79.3% of my battery. My wear level is 18%. That means the reading is off by all of 2.7%. I would say that is pretty close, especially at 18%. Right now, that is a maximum of 7 minutes of life that the wear percentage from MobileMeter is off. Keep in mind, we aren't talking about 7 minutes of life gone, we are talking in terms of anywhere from 30 min to 2 hours 30 min of life gone as a problem.

If this doesn't convince you, this proves you aren't listening to us. The wear percentage matters, and life is going down significantly. If you have a solution, share with us. If you don't, help us. What do you have to lose?

 

I have just finished writing a 5 page report, on battery wear and what I have experienced, I will be talking to Andrew to have it posted, It will include pictures aswell, showing and prooving what I have already stated..

Also Eddie I think you missed my post, answer it please, Caleb has answered it above. i will be back in 1 hour and 30 minutes, need to go to the gym.

Thanks in advance,

MysticGolem

 

Ok finished the report, 8 pages long, submitted it to Andrew for him to check it out and get his opinion.

Hopefully it will be up real soon so that everyone can read it. There are pictures showing and proving that the ACPI and bios are at fault here. Something Asus needs to identify and fix it.

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

Is this going to the News & Reviews Section? Will you link it once up? Thanks!

 

Yah, if it goes to the home page, i'm sure it will be in that section of the forums as you said. Also yah i will post a link ASAP, when Andrew gets back to me.

Thanks,

MysticGolem

 

I'll be posting it soon, probably tonight and will link to it from here

 

Here's the link to MysticGolem's "solution" and reason for this problem

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=1821879