How do I know if my laptop battery is worn?

Batteries power our favorite electronic devices, but they're not meant to last forever. The good news is thatWindows 10laptops have a Battery Report feature that breaks down whether your battery is still kicking or is on its last legs. With a few simple commands, you can generate an HTML file with battery usage data, capacity history, and life estimates. If it needs to be replaced, this report will tell you, long before it has a chance to fail.

Generate Battery Report in PowerShell

The Battery Report is generated via Windows PowerShell, a built-in command line tool you may have never used before. The easiest way to access it is to right-click on the Start icon and select Windows PowerShell (Admin)from the menu that appears. A pop-up window may ask for permission to make changes to your device; say yes.

The blue PowerShell command window will appear, allowing you to enter commands to automate certain tasks within Windows 10. Type or pastepowercfg /batteryreport /output "C:\battery-report.html"into the window and press Enter to run the command.

PowerShell will then tell you the name of the generated battery life report HTML file and where it has been saved on your computer. In this case, it is called battery-report.html and it has been saved to the C drive. You can now safely close PowerShell.

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View the Battery Report

Open Windows File Explorer and access the C drive. There you should find the battery life report saved as an HTML file. Double-click the file to open it in your preferred web browser.

The report will outline the health of your laptop battery, how well it has been doing, and how much longer it might last. At the top of the Battery Report, you will see basic information about your computer, followed by the battery's specs.

In theRecent usagesection, take note of each time the laptop ran on battery power or was attached to AC power. Every drain over the last three days is tracked in theBattery usagesection. You can also get a full history of the battery's usage under theUsage historysection.

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TheBattery capacity historysection shows how the capacity has changed over time. On the right is Design Capacity, or how much the battery was designed to handle. On the left, you can see the current full-charge capacity of your laptop's battery, which will likely decline over time the more you use your device.

This leads us to theBattery life estimatessection. On the right, you'll see how long it should last based on design capacity; on the left, you'll see how long it's actually lasting. A current, final battery-life estimation is at the bottom of the report. In this case, my PC would last 6:02:03 at design capacity, but will currently hold out for 4:52:44.

If you don't like what your battery report has to say, these easy tips can help you squeeze longer battery life out of your current laptop.

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