Microsoft Looking Into Windows 7 Battery Failures

Jared writes "Microsoft says it is investigating reports of notebooks with poor battery life with Windows 7, as first reported by users on Microsoft TechNet. These users claim their batteries were working just fine under Windows XP and/or Windows Vista, and others are saying that battery problems occur on their new Windows 7 PCs. Under Win7, certain machines spit out the following warning message: 'Consider replacing your battery. There is a problem with your battery, so your computer might shut down suddenly.' The warning is normally issued after using the computer's BIOS to determine whether a battery needs replacement, but in this case it appears the operating system and not the battery is the problem. These customers say their PC's battery life is noticeably lower, with some going as far as to say that it has become completely unusable after a few weeks. To make matters worse, others are reporting that downgrading to an earlier version of Windows doesn't fix the problem."

Come on Slashdot...

[datapharmer]

If you are going to post sensationalist stories at least give them better headlines. How about "Microsoft charged with assault on battery"... or some such. Seriously though, this could be bad if the users don't turn out to be crazies that don't want to admit their batteries just went bad.

Re:My battery died

[PawNtheSandman]

That was my idea.

Linux does it too...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have the same problem with Fedora on my acer laptop. Vista is quite happy and battery life works fine. But on Fedora it runs along dropping slowly until about 85% when it suddenly drops to 0% panics and suspends.

Re:There is some kind of battery black magic

[melikamp]

Yeah, totally. I am using Windows 7 on a laptop to write this message, and my battery is as healthy as

<NO CARRIER>

Re:Too much Windows open

[colonelquesadilla]

Clearly the power is leaking out all the windows, they should use quality double paned glass, to help mitigate the problem.

Vostro battery murdered by 7

[clysher]

Just chiming in to say that this issue is definitely real. My Dell Vostro battery was about a year and a half old when I installed Windows 7 the first time. When I finally decided to switch fully to 7 it only took about two weeks before I unplugged my computer and got a message that my battery needed to be replaced. The battery until then had about an hour and a half of time on it running the 'balanced' power setting. I noticed the message maybe two to three minutes after unplugging. I was planning to buy a new battery, but if this is real then I hope a class action is in the works because I need a new battery, and this is obviously the reason I need one. Also, since installing 7 I should point out that my battery now only has a seven minute life off ac power, even under Ubuntu 9.10, 8.04, and Windows XP. In response to someone mentioning 'high performance' being the likely culprit, I only ran high performance power management while on ac power.

Re:My battery died

[thijsh]

I sense a disturbance in the force, as if millions of batteries cried out 'Windows 7 be damned' and bricked themselves.

From statistical viewpoint you have a valid argument, but remember: it's all just "Lies, damned lies, and statistics".
Or a more Homer-esque quote: "People can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that.". :)

Re:Too much Windows open

[capnkr]

The original marketing slogan "Windows - Life without walls (but definitely with wall adapters) ." was determined unwieldy, and had to be shortened somewhat...

Re:My battery died...went NEAR Windows 7

[Anonymous Coward]

My laptop went NEAR a Windows7 box, and immediately died! I like Windows 7, but it must have terrible power stuff there must be in it!!!

Re:My battery died

[Linker3000]

This is another instance of where moving to Linux should be tried. I am running Fedora 12 on my Acer laptop and the battery life indicator regularly shows that I have 500+ hours of battery life remaining!

Re:Happens in other OSes, too.

[ettlz]

That and certain drives also have a mind of their own and ignore any hdparm APM setting after a short while in favour of their own, absurdly aggressive setting. One I have (by default) unloads after 8 seconds of inactivity and the only way to change it is by some obscure DOS utility that I can't get to work. 8 seconds is crazy-low, and because the typical interval for disc activity on a Linux system under enthusiastic use is typically 10-15 seconds (or even when a bit idle, as lots of other things touch the filesystem in the backgrounds), the heads spend a lot of time loading and unloading. It's possible to tune the Linux VM subsystem to ouch the disc less often, but in practise doesn't make much of a difference. Windows XP does exactly the same. The disc manufacturer says Linux should not wake up the disc so frequently, but I don't see how that squares with the way a modern, multitasking operating system works; things touch the filesystem, and this must be synced in good time (I don't want 30 seconds' worth of dirty data just sitting in RAM). And besides, disc manufacturers should just make discs and leave VM policy to kernel designers.

Re:My battery died

[Anonymous Coward]

After my battery died, I plugged it into the wall and got this message "Consider replacing your power generator. There is a problem with your power generator, so your computer might shut down suddenly." right before the city blacked ou...[HIBERNATE ACTIVATED]

Re:My battery died

[Hijacked Public]

lappy

This one word invalidates not only your entire post, but all of your other posts as well. Here at Slashdot and elsewhere.

Also, if your children have any posts those are invalidated as well.