tech help needed with PC laptop battery problem

[ryberg]

Maybe all you PCers can help out a poor Mac user here, this time around.

Got a new PC laptop, a simple Presario running WindowsXP, this past March, for my late father-in-law. Everything else has been fine with it (well, as fine as one can expect from a PC, I mean ) except that we have noted that if left asleep but not plugged in, the battery goes completely dead.

This happened recently, for example, even when it had only been used for a few minutes on a full charge and then closed. The monitor didn't stay on, either -- wasn't one of those occasional things where you open it up to see that it never went off and the keyboard is hot or something like that. Also my wife had a theory that it had to do on at least one occasion with a CD-ROM of our son's that we found had been left in the drive (as if the drive had continued working or something), but this last time, that wasn't the case, either. And there seems to be no mistake in terms of the power settings in the control panel, as when I opened that up this morning, it showed that everything was already set to spin down or turn off after 10-15 mins of non-use. Anyway, again this was a case where it was closed, so it wasn't forgotten and left running all that time, no matter what those settings were. Finally it wasn't a case of it just not waking up for some reaon, as it immediately did start up when plugged in and I confirmed in the control panel that the battery was in fact fully depleted.

Any diagnosis or suggestions would be appreciated!

Steve

[Jacko]

Originally Posted by ryberg

Maybe all you PCers can help out a poor Mac user here, this time around.

Got a new PC laptop, a simple Presario running WindowsXP, this past March, for my late father-in-law. Everything else has been fine with it (well, as fine as one can expect from a PC, I mean ) except that we have noted that if left asleep but not plugged in, the battery goes completely dead.

This happened recently, for example, even when it had only been used for a few minutes on a full charge and then closed. The monitor didn't stay on, either -- wasn't one of those occasional things where you open it up to see that it never went off and the keyboard is hot or something like that. Also my wife had a theory that it had to do on at least one occasion with a CD-ROM of our son's that we found had been left in the drive (as if the drive had continued working or something), but this last time, that wasn't the case, either. And there seems to be no mistake in terms of the power settings in the control panel, as when I opened that up this morning, it showed that everything was already set to spin down or turn off after 10-15 mins of non-use. Anyway, again this was a case where it was closed, so it wasn't forgotten and left running all that time, no matter what those settings were. Finally it wasn't a case of it just not waking up for some reaon, as it immediately did start up when plugged in and I confirmed in the control panel that the battery was in fact fully depleted.

Any diagnosis or suggestions would be appreciated!

Steve

Hibernate is the most "low power" usage setting as compared to stand-by/power down modes....you might try that if you have not already and see how that works

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by Jacko

Hibernate is the most "low power" usage setting as compared to stand-by/power down modes....you might try that if you have not already and see how that works

OK... I've seen it say before that it's going to hibernate or is waking up from hibernating. So then for a Windows/PC environment, shutting the computer and leaving it for hours or overnight or whatever still does not automatically result in the computer entering the lowest power setting...?

Steve

[BonnyW]

Laptop batteries only last a couple of years....they simply cease to charge after a while. They last even less time (a couple of months) when exposed to heat.
Lithium battery care

[Jacko]

Originally Posted by ryberg

OK... I've seen it say before that it's going to hibernate or is waking up from hibernating. So then for a Windows/PC environment, shutting the computer and leaving it for hours or overnight or whatever still does not automatically result in the computer entering the lowest power setting...?

Steve

If you have "Hibernate Enabled" in the Power section of Control Panel, then you should hibernate which is the lowest power usage setting as far as I know. If you are seeing these messages, the I assume you have hibernate enabled...I got nothing else...sorry....good luck!

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by BonnyW

Laptop batteries only last a couple of years....they simply cease to charge after a while. They last even less time (a couple of months) when exposed to heat.
Lithium battery care

Yeah this one hasn't been used so much and was new as of this past March, and also lasts well enough when in use continually...

Originally Posted by Jacko

If you have "Hibernate Enabled" in the Power section of Control Panel, then you should hibernate which is the lowest power usage setting as far as I know. If you are seeing these messages, the I assume you have hibernate enabled...I got nothing else...sorry....good luck!

Not trying to make this sound overly pejorative from my admittedly Mac user POV, but just wondering why the system wouldn't just automatically go into the lowest power sleep/hibernate/whatever you call it mode when not in use for hours and hours or even days, most especially when physically closed, you know (since obviously somebody is not coming right back then). Got an iBook that's 2-3 years old whose battery doesn't work for very long any more while in use (just as Bonny is indicating above), and yet I can close it and leave it overnight and come back the next day and it will wake up, meaning it obviously went into the lowest power mode. I can see the reason for a control not to send the system into the lowest power mode for times when you may be coming back to work, but I can't see the reasoning behind the system not going into the lowest power mode even after several hours of non-use and when it's been closed, to boot.

Anyway, thanks, I'll look for the hibernate settings and see if that changes things.

Steve

[Jacko]

Originally Posted by ryberg

but I can't see the reasoning behind the system not going into the lowest power mode even after several hours of non-use and when it's been closed, to boot.

Anyway, thanks, I'll look for the hibernate settings and see if that changes things.

Steve

More choices are usually better...but perhaps not in your case...

Hibernation vs Standby Mode are very similar and people tend to confuse the differences. Standby basically turns off power consuming components like the hard disks and monitor. It switches the computer to a low power state. Its much like a warm boot. Any contents of memory and unsaved desktop settings are lost. Hibernation saves state information by writing a hibernation file which contains the contents of memory and is thus the same size as total RAM. This is a snapshot of active memory. When you turn your PC back on, the state, including which applications are running (desktop) and the memory contents are restored to RAM and voila! - you are back to where you were when Hibernation mode started. The restoration of state can take place in 5 minutes, 5 hours, 5 days, 5 weeks, ....

Hibernation is only available if your system is ACPI-compatible. If it is not, the Hibernation tab will be missing and you will have an APM tab instead. To enable Hibernation mode as one of your Shutdown options:

* click Start / Settings / Control Panel
* double-click Power Options icon
* click Hibernate tab and select the Enable hibernate support check box
if the tab is not there, W2K does not support the feature on your hardware, bios, or whatever. The same dialog box show free disk space and required space to store memory. If it is missing, check for a newer bios for the motherboard.
* click Apply


The actual difference between standby and hibernation is that standby just goes into a low-power mode. The computer remains on, so if the battery dies while in standby, you may lose anything that wasnt saved. In hibernation, the current configuration of the desktop and any programs running and so on is save to the hard disk. Basically, the RAM info is saved to the hard drive so that the computer can fully turn off and the battery is left charged. I've used standby before and it doesnt drain the battery much, but its still more than nothing.

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by Jacko

More choices are usually better...

Spoken like a true Democrat.

Thanks for the help. That's quite the passage, there -- a little boggling!

AS I say, I'll look into the hibernation settings, then.

Steve