Laptop Battery Life.

[derekpara]

' afternoon all. I have an Acer Aspire laptop which, although eight years old has not had a great deal of use. Plenty of memory remaining and has been upgraded to Windows 10 quite recently.

Since Covid I have put it to more use and I find that the battery runs out after about 1 to 1.5 hours. Is this normal or is a battery change required ? ( 6-cell Li-on)

Cheers.

D

[barry1010]

Depends what you are using for. Follow these instructions to see what is draining your battery https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/battery-saver-windows-10

[derekpara]

Thanks Barry. Before I check your link I only use the laptop for Googling info etc. No gaming, very few photos or documents. I'll let you know what I discover.

D

[Buenchico]

If a laptop isn't really up to handling Windows 10, it can sometimes result in the processor working overtime and using quite a lot of power. It would be interesting to know the exact model number of your Acer Aspire (from the label on the bottom of it).

However laptop batteries are only meant to last for a couple of years or so, therefore if it's still got the original battery in it, it might be time for a new one.

[gingejbee]

...or, like I do, use it on mains power all the time....if, of course, you don't need it out and about.

[derekpara]

Nothing untoward using Barry's link.
Chris, The Acer model is Aspire V3-5710G, core i5-245oM 8GB 1TB. 64Bit etc Is that any help ?
Ginge, I'd thought of that but wouldn't it overheat ?

Thanks all.

[Buenchico]

Intel's website shows the processor in your laptop as falling into the group known by the code name of 'Sandy Bridge':
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/53452/intel-core-i5-2450m-processor-3m-cache-up-to-3-10-ghz.html

This page shows that Sandy Bridge was the code name used for 2nd Generation Intel Core Processors, which do NOT support Windows 10 drivers:
https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/support/articles/000006105/processors.html

So it's possible that your processor is struggling to cope with Windows 10. (I recently made the mistake of 'upgrading' a laptop from Windows 7 to Windows 10 without first checking whether the processor was really up to the job and now I'm regretting my action!).

Open Task Manager (via right-clicking on the task bar at the foot of your screen). Select the 'Processes' tab. Click on the 'Power Usage' column heading in order to put any power hungry processes at the top of the list. Look to see if there's anything showing as 'High'. (You might need to keep checking it periodically to see if, say, there's an updating process that's drawing all the power from time to time).

Or, as Ginge suggests, just use your laptop on mains power all of the time. (I suspect that well over half of laptops are never used on battery power. Most people seem to use them in just one place and leave them permanently connected to the mains adapter; it does them no harm at all).

[derekpara]

Thanks for going to so much trouble over this question, Chris. I think I'll keep it on mains from now on.

Cheers.

D

[diddlydo]

My laptop is at least 10 years old and for years I have got the message "Consider changing your battery"! I haven't and just keep it plugged in all the time - otherwise the battery lasts for about 10 minutes!

[derekpara]

Thanks, Diddly. That's the way for me.