How to check battery time left?

Hey guys, still enjoying the HP after getting through that weird Vista snafu. Right now, I am using the notebook on battery mode. I can check how much percentage I have left, but it doesn't seem to tell me an estimate of how many more minutes I have. Is there an option to view this in Vista, or do I need to download a program?

 

Vista usually gives me an estimate.

 

Hmm, I see you have Vista Business. After some Googling, I've read that Vista Business has a time estimate, but not Home Premium...is this true??

 

That sounds bogus, but perhaps true.

That wasn't the way it was with XP, though. My friend has XP Home on his laptop, and he has a time estimate.

That being said, there are other battery meters you could use...

 

actually, the reason that you dont have estimated time is that the estimated time feature does not work on any of the new hp laptops (anything in the 2000, 6000, or 9000 series)

 

Wow. That sucks. HP batteries + Vista = not good, eh?

 

WTF? Estimated Time is much more useful than the Percentage. So, nothing will work? I am shocked I never saw anyone else ask about this. I really would like to know how much time I have left when working on the go.

 

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Windows-Widgets/System-Utilities/Battery-Information-Tweaked.shtml

http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=08391e8d-39b4-4766-bab0-7ba3c487c0aa&l=1

http://www.mioplanet.com/products/batterymeter/

 

Thanks for all those links. I had tried a couple of those earlier. But yeah, now I've tried all three and none of them give the information. n/a Why would HP do something like this?? This has got to be a mistake, right?

 

Not a mistake. Actually quite well known around here. HP batteries do not report time remaining.

 

Here is another thread with HP owners discussing this problem:
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1640197&SiteID=1

Honestly, this is a very big limitation and inconvenience. Battery life can change drastically, depending on the settings of the power options. It would be highly useful to know how much extra time you have left and changing power options accordingly.

 

You can use RMclock to view all the battery stats and info. Its got a battery life time and all that

Expected battery life left will always change the moment you do something intensive.

 

Hey Flipfire, I'm actually using your awesome "undervolting" tutorial as I write this. Yeah, RMClock has some nice statistics. Too bad Battery Life Time Remaining is still listed as N/A.

 

weird it works for me. shows everything about the battery

remove your AC power, maybe thats why its not showing. It needs to be running on battery

 

Flipfire, you are awesome! Did I say that already? It works! =) Now one more question. What do your device details say? Mine says:

Designed Capacity: 88800 mWh
Fully Charged Capacity: 74355 mWh

Is this discrepancy normal on a brand new battery?

 

RMClock always worked for me... the only thing that's annoying is that once the battery gets below a certain percent (like 20 or 30%) it just reads "N/A"... I would rather it switch to "N/A" at like 10%... at 20-30% there's still a good chunk of life left!

 

You have a 12 cell and I only have a 6cell, which shows 47000*mWh / 45000*mWh

You kind of have a big gap there, you might wanna compare it with other users with 12cell battery

Ardroth: do you ahve the latest RMclock?

 

I actually have the high capacity 6 cell. Also, I don't know why, but the battery time left stopped working in RMClock since yesterday. I check marked 'Force Battery charge/discharge rate estimation' and Force battery life time/remaining charging time estimation, but this does not help. Infact, all the of boxes are currently checked.

 

did you change any settings? have you tried removing the battery and putting it back in?

Mine works flawlessly, but i dont really use battery that much