laptop crashes without warning on battery

BillA2 · ‎03-22-2017

My Notebook is only 15 months old and has started crashing without warning on battery. Over two weeks the crash point has gone from 90% empty to only about 15% charge used. A friend has a similar-aged laptop that has done the same thing. HP Support said batteries should last 2-3 years or more, that they understood my position and (no apology) their only help consisted of offering to give me a link to buy new batteries. I can accept that betteries need changing every 2-3 year. I do not accept a design where the need to change is triggered by repeated loss of data / work. My power management settings are standard but no warning of any kind is given beore the crash happens. Do other people have similar experiences? Why would anyone buy an HP Notebook that behaves like this?

erico · ‎03-22-2017

It has absolutely nothing to do with any specific manufacturer.

ASUS, Sony, Dell and others all use the industry standard of one year warranty, with the exception of some high end notebook models.

It is a matter of how a device is used and charged.

Unfortunately, There are no real specifics as to why it happens, but some people can manage to have a battery work without issue for up to three to five years.

The battery manufacturers are the ones with the one year warranty.

Do some research and check. you will see exactly what I mean about the battery warranty.

There are high end notebook that come with a two year warranty. The battery is included in the warranty.

Targeting a single manufacturer in the terms that you have is more than a little one-sided.

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BillA2 · ‎03-22-2017

I target HP because the HP Support person I talked this over with was supremely unsympathetic and unhelpful. I accept that batteries do not last forever, though 15 months seems very short and I was assured that 2-3 years is expected. I struggle to accept the idea that the computer is unable to detect the low battery state and sleep rather than switching off with loss of all data. I also feel that the technology is poorly designed if it goes from and almost 3 hour life with good warnings to crashing after 10 minutes with no warning (while still claiming 85% charge left) over about 10 days. I admit I was very happy until this point. However, for me a laptop that crashes with no warning is almost worse than useless. All my previous laptops have gone to sleep when they lacked enough juice - none of them lost data.

erico · ‎03-22-2017

There is a set point in power options of Windows operating system that certainly should have shutdown at a peercentage of your choice.

I usually set mine to 10% and it can be optionally set to hibernate or shutdown.

I don't know what Windows 10 has it set to as a default at the moment as I am waiting for my 2017 HP product loan to arrive.

Of course, if the battery has an extremely low battery capacity as compared to the original design capacity, it can shutdown without warning.

Sorry to hear that you ran into an unhelpful and unsympathetic person at HP Support. It happens, but not often. Most support persons are patient. Maybe that one was having a bad day or week and you paid the price for it. You never know.

2-3 years is not the expected product service life for a notebook battery. Whoever told you that fed you inaccurate information. One year is the expected service life for a laptop main battery. That is what manufacturer and online vendors will give as the warranty term for the replacement battery.

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BillA2 · ‎03-22-2017

You have offered more support and sympathy than they did. They were patient but uniformed.

Since you don't seem surprised I conclude that this (all recent?) batteries seem not to fade but instead their performance goes from great to near useless in a matter of days. The key problem, however, is that hte computer seems to feel they still have plenty of charge to give. Consequently it does not matter if I set my 'sleep' threshold to 10% or similar because the the computer 'sees' 80% charge even when the battery has reached the point when it causes the crash.

This does seem to be an important design flaw. Surely it is possible to devise a system where the functional battery level is read rather than what appears to be a nominal estimate?

As I say, none of my previous laptops showed the behaviour I report. One went down to about 5 minutes of batter life but still slept rather than crashed.

erico · ‎03-22-2017

The HP Support Assistant has a battery power check.

Run the check and then check the advanced option.

It will show the design voltage and current capacity of the battery. It will also show the current capacity of the battery. That will give you more insight as to the condition of your battery,

The HP PC Hardware Diagnostics UEFI also contains a battery test.

At Min 1:44 & 5:33 you will see a Window at the completion of the test. Notice that next to the Back to Main Menu button there is a Battery Details button. Click on it. You will see the details that I described about the battery and more. The video does not show what the Battery Details button does.

I am a volunteer forum member, not an HP employee. If my suggestion solved your issue, don't forget to mark that post as the accepted solution. If you want to say thanks, click on the Yes button next to the "was this reply helpful?"

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