How to check the charging of a laptop without contacting a service center. How to check the voltage on a laptop battery. Laptop battery wear

Today we’ll look at another popular and frequently asked question: how to find out the degree of wear of a laptop battery. And let’s immediately make a reservation - there is no way to find out the actual wear and service life of the battery - all existing programs only allow you to approximately estimate these values, although often this will be enough. We will look at two methods.

Determining wear and tear using Windows

Opening Start, enter in the search cmd and click on the found cmd.exe file right click mouse selecting Run as administrator. On the command line enter powercfg energy and click Enter.

After a minute, the assessment results will appear, but they will not be displayed on the screen, but will be saved in an html file. To find it, go here:
C:\Windows\system32\energy-report.html

You probably won’t be able to open this file from the system32 folder, so copy it to any other folder, from where you can open it on any Internet.

The report is quite voluminous, feel free to scroll down and find the section Battery information.

It will indicate the calculated (certificate) capacity of the battery and the capacity at the last full charge. By dividing the last capacity by the passport capacity, you can get the remaining resource: in this case, 36% remains.

Battery wear in AIDA64 program

To determine the degree of wear, you can use the well-known PC diagnostic program -. Previously, with its help we, name, laptop, and so on. Therefore, feel free - this utility will be useful to you more than once.

Open the menu in the program Computer - Power supply, and we see the same values obtained in the first way using command line. Here AIDA64 immediately shows the degree of wear - 63%. By the way, this is after 5 years of using the laptop, so Windows insistently asks you to replace the battery.

Another screenshot for example is a two-year-old Samsung laptop that has been used infrequently. AIDA64 shows 26% wear and 157 recharge cycles. These figures also correspond to the theory that in the first two years the battery loses up to 30% of its nominal capacity.

If you decide to replace the laptop battery, we recommend reading the story of the service center specialists about.

Over time, any laptop or smartphone, due to constant use from the built-in battery, its capacity begins to decrease. It is especially unpleasant when a fully charged battery runs out after just an hour of use. CHIP will tell you how to find out how worn out your mobile device's battery is and whether it's time to replace it.

You can get information about the laptop battery status using built-in Windows tools, and using third-party free utilities. First, let's try to do without extraneous tools.

Battery information via command line

Disconnect the laptop from the power supply. In the Start menu, type “cmd” and right-click on the search result that appears, select “Run as administrator” from the context menu.

Battery Care will tell you the battery information.

Small free utility Battery Care will help you get almost complete information about your laptop battery. The program hardly loads the system and displays data in a visual form.

Click on the program icon in the tray and click on the “Advanced” tab. Here you will find detailed information about the battery. In particular, the program will show the name of the battery, declared capacity, current condition, wear, etc.

The program is completely free and is regularly updated by the developers.

iPhone, iPad and Mac OS Battery Health

To check your iPhone or iPad battery, until now you had to contact the Genius Bar staff. The free coconutBattery tool for Mac OS will help you do this much faster and without unnecessary problems. The utility has already proven itself as an excellent tool for checking the condition of the battery, as well as its recharge cycles. Currently coconutBattery supports iOS devices.

iPhone battery check. The coconutBattery tool displays a lot of useful information about your iPhone battery

Using this tool, you will receive detailed information not only about the condition of the battery, but also about the current charge level, maximum capacity, as well as recharge cycles already completed. Thanks to this, you can quickly identify the essence of common battery problems, such as too fast discharge.

After my Dell Vostro 1015n laptop battery completely failed, I decided to buy a new one, but not an original one, since its cost was $129.99, which is equal to the cost of the laptop itself (the laptop is more than 6 years old). I ordered the Chinese equivalent for $16.5. A few weeks later the package arrived. Externally, the battery did not differ from the original one.

Original battery:

Chinese equivalent:

As can be seen from the labels, the capacity of the Chinese battery is approximately equal to 5200mAh×11.1V≈58Wh (approximately equal because the voltage in reality is not a constant value), and the original one is only 48Wh. I guessed that the actual capacity would be lower, and I had a desire to find out by how much.

First, I tested the battery using the method described in the article on.

Portable Aida64 showed that the passport capacity (sewn into the battery microcontroller) is equal to 48840mWh (48.84Wh), which is already different from the inscription on the label :)

Standard Windows console utility:

Powercfg /energy

showed the same result (part of the report from the file "energy-report.html"):

I was pleased that the degree of battery wear is 0%. But I was interested in a slightly different task: to experimentally determine the actual actual capacity of the battery. Looking for suitable tool I settled on the free application for personal use BatteryMon, which was perfect for solving the task.

The application is a real-time meter of electricity consumed by a laptop. Among the many different useful features of the program, I was most interested in the yellow panel that displayed the remaining/full charge of the battery (Capacity), the drop/increase in charge during discharging/charging (Capacity drop/Capacity gain) and the instantaneous power during discharging/charging (Discharge rate). charge rate). Instantaneous discharge power is the power of the laptop developed in at the moment time. It’s interesting to observe this value under CPU load :)

Having installed the new battery, I saw that its capacity was 54%. I gave the laptop the opportunity to discharge it to 8% (this is the requirement in the battery instructions). Then I restarted the program and charged the laptop to 100%.

Considering that the battery already had a residual 8% charge, using simple mathematical calculations I determined that the total actual capacity of the battery is:

(44888mWh/(100%-8%))×8%+44888mWh=48791mWh or 48791mWh/11.1V≈4396mAh.

This is less than what is written on the label, but slightly more than the capacity of the original battery, which is good news :)

Then I monitored the battery drain, for this I turned off network adapter power supply, restarted the program BatteryMon and drained the battery to 10%.

Using a similar example above, I calculated the total actual capacity of the battery:

(44855mWh/(100%-10%))×10%+44855mWh=49839mWh or 49839mWh/11.1V≈4490mAh.

When discharged, the numbers turned out to be even slightly higher! I attribute this result to a not entirely correct charge measurement when charging the battery, as evidenced by a jump of around 90 - 100% during the first charge (see figure above). I think this is due to the logic of the battery controller, since it is from it operating system, and accordingly the program BatteryMon, uses a special 9-pin (in the case of my laptop) interface to receive information from the battery.

But, despite this, on the whole I was satisfied: I received a battery that lasts the same way as the original one did when it was new, and this is more than 4 hours of continuous work in the browser with a screen brightness slightly below average.

Among the program's features BatteryMon I would like to note the function of displaying the elapsed and remaining battery life of the laptop, as well as the useful option of viewing information about the battery (manufacturer, capacity in mWh and mAh, voltage, etc.).

This article will discuss ways to determine the degree of wear on a laptop battery. Two methods will be considered and their results will be compared for the same laptop.

Method 1: Windows built-in tools

The advantage of this method is that it does not require installation additional programs, and the disadvantage is that it works on Windows versions 7 and above. For Windows XP or Vista, use the second method.

Before starting the test, close everything running programs, click the "Start" button, find "Command Prompt" in the list of programs, right-click on it and select "Run as administrator" from the context menu.

Type the command in the command line window:

Powercfg energy

and press Enter.

Wait for the battery test process to complete (test duration 1 minute).

When the test completes, you will see something like:

Ignore the errors that will be displayed in the command prompt window. Open the html file using the path specified in the console using any Internet browser. If you were unable to open this file from the "system32" folder, copy it to any other folder and open from there. Scroll down to Battery:Battery Information. Use the calculator to calculate the ratio of the “Last Full Charge” and “Calculated Capacity” values.

As can be seen from the example, the battery capacity is: (8410mAh/41760mAh)*100 ≈ 20%, that is, battery wear is 100% - 20% = 80%. It follows that the laptop owner will soon need to replace the battery.

Method 2: AIDA64 diagnostic program

To determine the state of your laptop battery, you can use the popular computer diagnostic application - AIDA64. The program is paid, but on the official website you can download a portable, installation-free trial version for 30 days.

Download, unpack and run the program. In the left pane of the window, go to the "Computer > Power Options" branch.

In the "Battery Properties" section you can immediately see the degree of battery wear. As you can see, the value, within the limits of rounding the value, converges with the value obtained in method 1.

Sooner or later, owners of mobile PCs - laptops, ultrabooks, netbooks, etc. — encounter problems with the computer operating in offline mode (on battery power). Most often this manifests itself in the form of rapid battery drain. Situations with spontaneous shutdowns or reboots of the computer are also possible. How to independently determine the technical condition of the battery? Does it need urgent replacement or can it still work? Let's look at these questions.

Laptop battery testing program

There are dozens of utilities that can determine the technical condition of batteries. One such program is BatteryInfoView. Naturally, this and similar applications can only help if the computer is capable of working offline for at least a short amount of time. If, when disconnecting charger The laptop immediately turns off, there is a high probability that the program will not be able to complete its main task.

BatteryInfoView is very easy to use:

Go to the official website of the developers to download the archive with the program - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/battery_information_view.html.
Unzip the archive, then run the file "Batteryinfoview.exe".
The newly opened window will display a table with various information about the battery installed in the laptop. We are interested in the item "Battery Wear Level" (in latest version This item is called "Battery Health" in the program.

Opposite this item is the approximate remaining level of wear. battery in percentage. In our case it is 87%, which is good indicator(i.e. the battery is only 13% worn out).
At this point you can complete your work with the program.

Utilities like BatteryInfoView are not always able to assess the technical condition of the battery the first time it is launched. This is because the rating is based on "Full Charged Capacity" and "Designed Capacity" new battery) without taking into account the actual battery discharge time. The program simply divides the first indicator by the second, then multiplies the result by 100 - as a result, the approximate level of battery wear is obtained. For example, in our case it is 40380/46400 = 0.87 * 100 = 87.0%.

To more accurately assess the “health state” of the battery, the program needs to run for at least 2-3 full charge/discharge cycles of the laptop.

Let's give another example of using a battery testing application - BatteryMark.Ru. This program has more functionality compared to BatteryInfoView. In particular, the BatteryMark.Ru utility has a special battery testing function, as a result of which you can draw some conclusions about the technical condition of the device:

Download the archive with the program from the developers’ website - http://batterymark.ru.
Run the file "BatteryMark.Ru.exe".
A window with a graph will be displayed on the screen, in which, during testing, data (percentage) about the battery discharge for a given time of computer operation will be entered.
Charge your laptop fully, then unplug the power cable.
To start the testing function, click on the "Start" button in the lower right corner of the BatteryMark.Ru program window.

By default, the program runs in accelerated mode, which will require approximately 10 minutes to plot the battery status. In this case, the result may not be accurate. To turn off the accelerated operating mode, open the “Options” tab at the top of the window and uncheck the corresponding item.

Now the program will test the battery until it is completely discharged. But the graph of her condition will appear in real time.
Work with the laptop for some time - an hour and a half. Or just leave it on with the program running.
After some time has passed, take a look at the graph constructed by the program. Let's give a few examples of how this graph can be used to determine the technical condition of a battery.

Attention - for more accurate diagnostics of the battery on your computer, you should disable the power saving function when the PC is running in offline mode. For Windows OS, this is done in the "Power Options" section, which can be accessed through the "Control Panel".

Example 1

The graph shows that for about 1 hour 7-8 minutes the battery charge was reduced by approximately the same number of points. However, when the charge reached 50%, it began to sag sharply. In the remaining ten minutes the battery was completely discharged, i.e. in fact, it was enough for 80 minutes of work. IN similar situations They say the battery is very worn out.

Example 2

And here we see approximately the same situation as in the previous case. Up to about 50% charge, the battery discharged evenly - without sudden drops. Already after 50% it began to be observed sharp drop charge for a short time. Unlike the previous case, here the battery was discharged from 50% to 0% not in 10, but in about 40 minutes. Here, however, the battery was discharged to 50% within 50 minutes, which is 20 minutes less than shown in the previous graph.

However, such a graph signals an imminent deterioration in the technical condition of the battery.

Example 3

And here is an almost ideal battery life graph. As you can see, the battery charge was gradually consumed throughout the entire operating time of the laptop - 3 hours 16 minutes. This indicates the good technical condition of the battery.

Hardware battery testing

Hardware testing refers to measures to determine the technical condition of a device by measuring certain physical quantities (mainly voltage, capacitance and current) using control and measuring equipment. Some simple tests can be performed at home. To do this, you will need a regular multimeter capable of measuring DC voltage.

Let's take as an example the most common battery from Lenovo laptops.

The photo above highlights the contact pad from which further voltage testing will be carried out. A little higher - there is an area on the sticker that provides information about the nominal output voltage of the battery (in our case - 11.1 volts). This data will be useful in the future.

To carry out the necessary measurements, we used an inexpensive Chinese tester:

Pay attention to the highlighted fragment of the photo. Small wires were screwed to the test leads of the multimeter. This was done to make it possible to take voltage samples from the narrow openings of the battery contact pad (the probes simply do not fit into them).

We begin to take measurements by placing improvised tester probes into the openings of the contact pad. In our case, the first information was obtained by measuring the 1st and 3rd contacts (the first pair of contacts has the same poles - “+” or “-” - it doesn’t matter).

The multimeter screen showed a value of 5.74 volts. However, this is not the voltage required to operate the laptop. Simply the currently measured pins are used to supply power to the laptop's auxiliary devices (for example, sensors).

Voltage measurements between the first and 3rd, 4th and 5th contacts led to the same results - approximately. When connecting the probe to pin 6, the picture changed:

The same result - about 10.3 V - was also revealed when measuring the voltage between 1 and the far right contacts. Thus, the necessary contacts were found.

In the case of any electronics, there is an unspoken rule - one or another physical quantities(voltage, resistance, capacitance, etc.) may differ from the values declared by the manufacturers by 5% in any direction.

In our case, 5% of 11.1 V is 0.555 V. That is. the permissible lower voltage limit is 11.1 - 0.555 = 10.54 volts.

Based on this, we can conclude that the existing battery needs to be replaced.

Let's sum it up

For more or less precise definition technical condition battery requires the use of not only software, but also hardware. The first chapter of this article gave an example of working with the BatteryInfoView program. The utility was launched on the same battery whose output voltage was measured in the second chapter of the article.

Although the BatteryInfoView program showed a low wear rate of 13%, in practice it turned out that the battery was only capable of powering the laptop for about 20 minutes. Having measured the output voltage, we found out that the battery cells were severely worn out. The control board built into the battery could also have failed, causing the program to display incorrect results.