Thread: TG Daily Hardware: Microsoft investigates Windows 7 battery glitches

Thank CHRIST. This problem is horrible for the people it affects. Numerous user reports have been on technet for months and MS has been ignoring them. I finally convinced my fiancee to let me put Win7 on her laptop (before I knew the problem existed, and after successful Win7 install on my laptop) and then she has this problem, so I look like a douche for "ruining" her battery.

what happens?

Basically the battery runs out REALLY fast. In her case, I found out that when it gets to 7%, the computer auto-sleeps, but if I wake it back up it will last for another 45 minutes while reporting 1% the whole time. And then without warning of course, it will fully run out. My theory is that it is just mis-reporting the time, but she claims that even with this 45 minutes "bonus time" at the 1% mark, her total battery time is still less than it was in Vista. I can't say for sure, because I never timed it on her system before, and I don't know that I can trust her guesses.

What's worse, I put Vista back on new partition, as a test, and the total run time (with normal battery % reporting) is the same as it is in 7 with the bonus time... so you would think that proves my theory that it's just mis-reporting, right? Well, not necessarily... I still wish I had a benchmark from before the first Win7 install. Lots of the technet people are claiming that once they installed 7, even if they go back to Vista or XP their time is permanently less than it was before. Which would back up my fiancee's idea that even with the 1% bonus time in 7, her battery is still less long-lasting now.

If this is true, there are 2 possible explanations:

1) The batteries are being actually damaged somehow (and I can't even FIND a reliable replacement battery for her 1-yr old Acer lappy... just some shady second hand ones for $100+)
2) Some sort of memory chip on the battery is permanently reporting bad info to make it appear the battery is damaged

Lots of ifs and confusion here.

Oh, and the whole time you are on battery power you keep getting popup messages saying "your battery is damaged, please consider replacing it." And for some people even when the battery is at 90%+ the PC will auto-sleep, basically making it impossible for them to use battery power.