The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    High Capacity Laptop Battery Experiences

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by TPNxl, Jul 30, 2019.

  1. TPNxl

    TPNxl Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    2
    Messages:
    10
    Likes Received:
    2
    Trophy Points:
    6
    Hello all,
    I have owned various laptops with what I would call high capacity batteries (>85WHr capacity as 100WHr is the TSA limit) and would like to hear whether other users have had the same experience as I have:
    Specifically, I have owned 4 different laptops with Dell 6-cell 97/99WHr batteries: one Alienware 17 R4, two Alienware 17 R5s, and a Dell XPS 15 9570. The Alienwares all had the same 99WHr battery, while the XPS 15 had a 97WHr battery. Basically what happens is:
    1. Computer arrives from the factory with 3% wear already on the battery, making the “usable” capacity 94/96WHr respectively. This is fine I suppose, as 3% of 5 hours is barely 9 minutes, a rather insignificant time in battery life.
    2. Every time the computer’s battery state of charge drops below about 8% on the 99WHr batteries and 9% on the 97WHr batteries the wear level increases 3% out of nowhere upon restarting the computer, regardless of how long the battery is left below that percentage or how much it drops to. The battery does not wear until the computer is restarted, and calibration makes the problem worse. This is NOT Windows misreporting the battery wear because the same wear shows up in pre-boot tests, and I have not experienced this behavior on any other battery including my iPhone which I drop to dead every day almost.
    3. The only other time I remember battery wear increasing was once on the XPS 15 by 1% after successfully not dropping the computer below 11% for a while.
    Now I have some questions for those of you that are smarter than me about this:
    1. Do you think the battery is genuinely wearing out really fast or is this just a really poorly designed battery management system misreporting wear?
    2. If this is a problem with the battery cells wearing, can’t Dell change the firmware of the battery and rebrand it to an 85-90Wh battery so when the battery reports 0% there is really 5-10% left?
    I also want to hear about your experience if you:
    - Have owned or own a non-Dell laptop with battery capacity in excess of 85WHr (especially pre-touch bar Retina 15” MacBook Pro users)
    - Have owned or own a Dell laptop, like mine or not
    - Have any information to share that I have not brought up yet
    Any and all opinions are welcome. Thanks!
     
    TPNxl, Jul 30, 2019
    #1