Laptop has stopping warning of low power

Hootie19

I don't know what I've done to switch this off, if indeed that's what has happened, but now my laptop just switches itself off when the battery runs down.

And it's not even out of power when it does it - when I plug it in, the battery is usually showing at about 18%.

Can anyone tell me how to switch this warning back on please. Iti s a Compaq Presario CQ71 (I think!)


Oh, please, if you are able to respond, can you be really patronising, because I know absolutely squat about the workings of computers and need things spelled out in great detail. (Serious request - not being sarcastic!)

Dave_C_2

Hi,
This is the easy way tested using my CQ61 with Windows 7

1) Click Start then Control Panel
2) Click Power Options
3) Make sure the radio button next to HP recommended is checked
4) Click on Change plan settings on the HP recommended line
5) Now click on Restore default settings for this plan and then Yes in the pop-up.
6) Close the Control panel window (X in top right)
7) Job done.

Hammyman

OK, I'm a little confused...easily done.

Are you saying that it runs on mains OK but when you run it on the battery and it turns off then you plug it back in it says the battery is at 18%?

If that's the case it may be that the power meter in Windows has gone out of whack and needs re-calibrating. There should be something in the help-files HP put on to tell you how to do that.

Option 2 is the battery has a duff cell and its misreporting to Windows.

How old is the laptop?

MarkBargain

I wonder if the battery is just getting old. New ones are about £23 on Ebay so it might be worth replacing the battery perhaps.

Dave_C_2

Folks, the steps I posted above were to get the power management settings back to default as the OP was complaining about no warning.
It should warn first then switch off.

As we all know, these settings can easily be accidentally changed.

Before attempting to fix anything fancy like battery state reporting or even a new battery, let's give the simple fix a try first.

Just sayin'
Dave

Hootie19

Dave_C - thank you so much! I have followed your excellent instructions and will now wait with much anticipation for the machine to tell me when the battery power runs down.

I did have to rush for my sunglasses though - my goodness the screen went bright :rotfl:!! Have reduced it to an more acceptable level now though.

Hammyman - no, sorry. I didn't make myself clear. When I am using the laptop on battery, there USED to be a window pop up when the battery was getting really low, which said to switch to alternative power or something like that. That has stopped happening, so now, when the battery goes get low, the laptop just switches itself off. But then, when I do plug the power supply in, and hover the mouse over the battery symbol in the bit at the bottom of the screen which has all the little symbols in it (like the volume thingy, and the EN for the language etc) it was immediately showing the battery as "18% available, plugged in, charging", so I don't think that the battery HAD run out of all power. Hope that makes sense.


MarkBargain - thank you. I will bear that in mind if I still have problems. I'd always thought laptop batteries were really expensive!

Hammyman

Dave_C wrote: »

Before attempting to fix anything fancy like battery state reporting or even a new battery, let's give the simple fix a try first.

Just sayin'
Dave

I've been doing this for 25 years and nothing in power management you posted would make a jot of difference.

Just sayin'
Hammyman.

Hammyman

Hootie19 wrote: »

Hammyman - no, sorry. I didn't make myself clear. When I am using the laptop on battery, there USED to be a window pop up when the battery was getting really low, which said to switch to alternative power or something like that. That has stopped happening, so now, when the battery goes get low, the laptop just switches itself off. But then, when I do plug the power supply in, and hover the mouse over the battery symbol in the bit at the bottom of the screen which has all the little symbols in it (like the volume thingy, and the EN for the language etc) it was immediately showing the battery as "18% available, plugged in, charging", so I don't think that the battery HAD run out of all power. Hope that makes sense.

Yes, thats what I'd kind of thought you were saying. The reason you're not getting the window popping up is because the battery is reporting to the laptop that it has more than the low power warning threshold so, for example, the warning is set to come on at 10% but the battery reports 18% so you get no warning. It then dies because it has gone flat. The reason it is doing this is because one or more of the cells in the battery have died the death so the battery thinks its got charge in it but it hasn't. So as a result of that dead cell or cells, like you, the battery didn't think it had run out of all power.

i've had a couple of Thinkpads I sold recently which had been in storage for a while which displayed the same behaviour. They were reporting the battery condition was good, it had low charge cycle count, the charge capacity was within 1% of the design capacity and that they had 8hrs runtime left but died after 1-1.5hrs. Changed the batteries for new ones and all was good.

Dave_C_2

Hammyman, after re-reading the replies and your explanation I must agree that it does sound like an iffy battery.

Just sayin'

Apologies for any upset...

Dave

Hammyman

ROFL. No problem.

Hootie19

Dave_C - just wanted to say thank you again. After following your instructions, I now have the low power warning appearing once again. No more lost work - yay.