Laptop battery information from Windows
The Windows Power Meter tab in Windows XP power options in the control panel shows actual information about the installed laptop battery pack. Below is an example what information is displayed.
It’s unknown to what extend laptop battery information is validated by the POST controller on the motherboard. It’s not unlikely battery information is checked and may result in rejection of a laptop battery through a “battery not recognized” notification.
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| Windows Laptop battery information in power options |
If the above window with "Detailed information about battery #1 or #2" shows no information about the laptop battery it's unlikely the charging process is started by the POST controller.
Causes of laptop battery rejection may be:
- Failed communication between laptop battery and POST controller
- Invalid laptop battery memory contents
- Electronic faults
- Hacked “refurbished” batteries
"Refurbished" laptop batteries can be tested using the simple laptop battery test. New "refurbished" laptop batteries with significant less capacity than listed are probably "refurbished" through a factory reset of laptop battery memory.
UBUNTU - LINUX laptop battery information
The free LINUX variant called UBUNTU shows a lot more information from the laptop battery
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| UBUNTU LINUX shows a lot more laptop battery parameters. |
UBUNTU can be run from CDROM / DVD of USB pen drive without changing an existing Windows installation.
Notebook Hardware Control laptop battery information - NHC
The free Windows program called NHC - Notebook Hardware Control shows the following information;
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| Windows Laptop battery information in power options |
It's a lot less information compared to the UBUNTU laptop battery information window but there's more info already compared to what Windows XP provides by default.
Find out how Battery Life Time is calculated.
Back to the laptop battery charging diagram.
