Question about HP power manager for charging restriction

[abdullah5490]

so HP power manager decrease the battery full charge capacity to 80% for maximizing over all battery health  in lifetime by charging restriction.
but the problem is, if the battery original health is also 80%, hp power manager do nothing then in "maximize my battery health" mode. it does not decrease full charge capacity further to avoid over charging.
Kindly let me know, is there any possibility to set charging limit myself to certain percentage even laptop remain plugged in? In hp power manager, or through anything else?

[Jupitero]

Hello.

The charging logic is determined by your laptop BIOS, and your only options are those presented in the BIOS settings; Power Manager can only toggle those settings.

For the "anything else" department there are some options, in which I cannot help you.

1. Have your laptop send an on or off command to a smart power outlet (in which your laptop charger is connected) whenever battery level thresholds are reached. May be viable with just Powershell, depending on the smart outlet.

2. Hack the BIOS - requires Level 30 in coding skill.

[TzortzisG]

Hi!

Jupitero, I think that it won't be necessary for user abdullah5490 to become a "Level 30 Coder" just yet, at least not to deal with this ""issue"".....

abdullah5490, your business laptop is working as it should, limiting max charged capacity to 80% of original. Although your hypothesis is very interesting -it's also completely wrong. The relationship between the Battery wear level/Battery health AND how much the "maximize my battery health" reduces the full charge is........NONE!

Original BIOS versions on the G8 machines (and other business laptop series) limited the fully charged level to 80%, and this is what showed up if you clicked on the battery icon. Some BIOS updates later, HP decided to change the way the lower charge level APPEARS to the user, and make this whole thing "transparent" to the owners of HP Business laptops. I have explained how this works a while back here: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/BIOS-setting-doesn-t-work/m-p/...

With these newer BIOS versions, HP creates a "virtual" Battery wear level of 20% (battery health is reported back as 80% minus the normal wear and tear of the battery at that time). In this way, the Fully charged capacity is reported as being much lower than the Designed charged capacity, and the BIOS reports the battery as charged to 100% (of the fake "virtual" 80% available Battery capacity). The battery icon also displays 100% in Windows.

This is a bit hard to understand, so I'll just demonstrate how it works on two of my systems, a 650G8 with its original 2020 BIOS and a 640G8 with a later one.

This is a screenshot of the Battery state of the 650G8 bought in early 2021 with a battery manufactured in late 2020. Charge level is listed as 79.5% and battery health as 99.3%.

This is the Battery state for the 640G8 bought in mid-2023 with a battery manufactured in mid-2021. Charge level is listed as 100% and battery health as 78%. Since this is a more portable laptop, I often use it on battery and this is why it has some battery wear (2%), and the larger 3-year old 650 has almost none (0.7%)

By the way, if your laptop really had a 20% Battery wear, the battery charge limit would be the least of your concerns. With modern laptop batteries, when their health deteriorates to 80% (or less) they're more likely to become bloated/swollen and should be replaced with new ones to avoid the serious problems this causes.....

[abdullah5490]

Before anything, let me express my gratitude for your detailed response, afterward, let me explain what i was saying with example to my laptop.

its hp x360-1040g8 with 78w battery and latest bios version. So the design capacity is almost 78000MWH. But the actual full charge capacity (without battery health saving mode) is around 62000MWH 80%. Which means that my battery's health is already 80%. When i charge my battery to 100%, the current capacity showed as around 62000MWH in normal charging mode without restriction.

Now, If I set HP power manager to (maximize my battery health), it do nothing! The battery current capacity still go to 62000MWH at 100% of charging and power manager do not reduce the full charge capacity to something lower in order to limit the charging to 80% or create a virtual wear level for health safety.

This was my query. Logically if a battery currently holding charge capacity of 62000MWH and hp power manager instructed to maximize battery health, it should reduce the capacity calculated from current full charge capacity of the battery, not from the design capacity, to protect overcharging and other related issues with the health. but unfortunately, it is calculating from designed capacity only, limit the full charge capacity to 80% of designed capacity in maximize health mode. which is not benefitial if battery's current charge capacity is already at 80%. In such case, the "maximize my battery health" mode do nothing for the battery remaining health protection.

[TzortzisG]

Salam abdullah5490.

You are very welcome. I was very intrigued by your question having several G8/G9s myself. Again, your logic and your hypothesis is very interesting. The problem is that these recent BIOS versions have made the Battery Limiting method/algorithm so confusing, that you actually have to take out the battery and do some multimeter analysis on it to see what's actually going on.... Even worse is the fact that HP doesn't allow downgrading to the old versions that had the legacy-style battery charging limit for "security reasons". Just let me repeat that if you really had a 20% wear, then that would be your problem, and I should help you find a replacement battery!

On these modern laptops it's very difficult getting rid of this Battery protection algorithm. Thankfully, I'm not interested in getting back the lost 20% charge of my battery, so I haven't really looked into it. I just know that HP has turned it into some sort of Intelligence Quotient subtest, probably to make sure none of the Business laptops with 3years and up warranty sustain damage from bloated batteries, and other such problems. If your problem is that you can't get your system to limit its charge to 80%, then you can relax and rest assured that your battery's health is being looked after by the HP algorithm.

On the other hand, if you actually want to get back to the 100% charging of your battery, then I suggest you read this (awesome) user's posts: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5274176

This is one where he claimed that he finally cracked the whole "Let HP Manage My Battery" puzzle: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-Notebooks/Battery-capacity-stuck-at-60-No-option-to-quot-Maxi...  But it was followed by a later post that the problem persisted. You see, in my opinion, what's really confusing you is the fact that the OTHER option isn't doing what you think it is......

Further reading:      HP Battery Health Manager     HP Power Manager

[abdullah5490]

hi, thanks for your well-detailed replies, but let me explain what I want. First of all, keep in mind that getting a genuine HP battery is biggest problem in my country. I can't even get batteries from other after market makers. everything is fake here. The batteries are labled as 78w capacity, and after installation, we see the capacity is 40w only, and there's no claim! Anyway, let's come to our topic. I am a person who change laptops so frequently. That's why, whenever i got any laptop, I use to use primarily plugged in. Reason is, it will not use the battery cycles, which will eventually not decrease the charging capacity of my battery. So the battery remained almost untouch, at it's best. To keep it allive, I discharge and charge to 100% once in a week, but not more. What I heard is, plugging the laptop continuously overcharge the battery which damage it's life. This is where i'm looking for solution. On other vendors such as dell, lenovo, we got a build-in mechanism to set max charge limit where i set to 80%. but in HP, the "maximize my health" is not working as expected, explained in my above reply. That's why i'm worried, that if I keep using my laptop plugged in, it will damage my battery without usage. and if I do not, it will eat my battery cycles and charge hold capability. I don't want to degrade my laptop's value due to battery. Yes, battery is a consumable component, but if i am not consuming it, it should remain at it's best. Also, as I said, getting a genuine battery is impossible, so i have to stay as long as possible with the one installed in my laptop

[TzortzisG]

My friend, I completely agree with you -but you're missing the point.

There is NO WAY to turn OFF maximize my battery health on a G8. Anything you choose either in BIOS or Power manager....it's ON. It's always always on. There is no setting to successfully turn it off. People have contacted HP about this, and this has produced 0% results. This is why you're ALWAYS ALWAYS seeing this 20% drop in your battery's performance. If you were to remove the battery and place it in another laptop that didn't FORCE the battery protection -like the G8s -it would say charged to 80%.....

There is nothing to solve in your case. You have no 20% wear in your battery. Read the user's posts I linked to.....

[abdullah5490]

Oh got it. I was not aware of this change that it can't be disabled completely. So in the light of our discussion and your knowledge, what else you'll recommend to save the battery from further damage in my case where I want to use while always plugged in? What habbits, or what procedure could be benefitted in this regards?

[TzortzisG]

The setting is enough.

The only other thing that makes any difference is not letting your laptop heat up too much because extremes in temperature aren't your battery's friend. Other than that, don't stress so much and enjoy your system. In my experience computers often tend to have problems and malfunction in ways that have nothing to do with what we do.

Take care!