Big Battery Percentage Drop Normal?

I decided to test out the battery on my NP8150 today because I pretty much have it plugged in 24/7. I was closely watching how long it takes for the battery to die off to see if this laptop is going to work well if I need it on the go.

Anyways, I was at about 30% when it immediately dropped to critical (5-8% or so). Can someone that uses the battery more than I do tell me if this is regular behavior due to faulty software calculations or if this is due to a defect in the battery?

PS. Laptop is only 4-5 months old I think

 

I think that it's a software issue. I don't run mine on battery very often, but I've noticed that it skips from 30 minutes of run time to 10 minutes or less much faster than you'd expect. The battery meter I've used has never been particularly accurate, so I'd take them with a grain of salt. As long as you're getting the expected 1.5-2 hours out of your laptop battery, then it's lasting as long as most of them. Battery meters for whatever reason have never been accurate for me.

 

Is this using the default Windows battery monitor or a third party software?

As Malibal has stated, battery monitors can be inaccurate. If you are trying to get the most out of your battery life, make sure to use the power saver settings in Windows Power Options and turn off your wifi and Bluetooth as those two items alone tend to shave about an hour off of battery life, at least it was about that with my old Dell laptop.

 

I'm using the default Windows meter as my gauge. I figured the drop is most likely due to a software issue.

I'm going to charge up completely though and test it again to see how long a charge lasts. I switched to power saving settings and I must say the thing drained pretty fast with screen brightness at the lowest setting possible as well.

I'm just hoping I don't need to carry around my laptop much next year for college.

 

AMD automatically lowers the clocks on your GPU with a feature called PowerTune. It works very well.

In order to get the most life out of your battery, whenever possible, let it drain completely before plugging it into AC, and let it charge to 100%. I pull mine when it reaches 100% and let it run solely on AC. Most likely unnecessary since the computer should automatically stop charging once it's full, but I'm special that way.

Treat it like the old nickle cadmium batteries.

 

Did you remember to disable your wifi/Bluetooth as well? Again, that should gain you quite a bit more time running your battery.

 

So its possible to pull out the battery and run on just the power supply? I may do this just to try and preserve it's life until I need it for school.

 

Sure, it won't harm anything. Though obviously you lose that protection if you suddenly lost power. It may not sit stable without the battery though. Some people cut a bit of Styrofoam to fit the gap.

 

might be worth trying battery care (in my sig below) to see how a third party software monitors it and if it gives the same readings.