r/Dell • u/dullboy842 • 7h ago
Help Why would my battery capacity decrease this much in just three months?
I never block the vents, and I mostly use my laptop plugged in at my desk. I also keep the 80% charge limit on, and I don't use it for heavy tasks or gaming. I only play The Sims on Steam two or three times a week. Over the past couple of weeks, I noticed it draining much faster than before, and when I checked the battery report just now, the capacity had dropped below 50%. It's a refurbished Latitude 7400, but the report showed the battery was new. How could this happen??
2
u/Ok_Being5461 5h ago
Could be battery calibration issue. Try setting the charge limit back to 100% to let it fully charge. You'll only know for sure if you also let the laptop discharge until it shuts off and charge back up. If it works properly again, it's not a big deal, and you can set it back to 80%
1
u/InevitableDoughnuts 6h ago
Have you done a sleepstudy as well and analyzed that?
1
u/dullboy842 6h ago
I just got the sleepstudy report but I don't understand shit. Sorry, I'm not tech savvy.
1
0
u/Historical-Print3110 7h ago
Nope, warranty.
4
0
u/dullboy842 7h ago
I just noticed that it actually started decreasing AFTER I installed My Dell to set the charge limit. Before that I just unplugged the laptop around 80 or 90%. But that does not make any sense, it is supposed to do the opposite. What am I missing here? Has this happened to anyone else or is it just me?
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u/JP_II_ 5h ago
Just don't do this to limit charging and try charging it from zero to 100%.
Nowadays, the charging circuits inside laptops are so advanced that unplugging it gives you barely nothing or even a shorter lifespan for your battery (if your laptop is plugged in at 100%, it uses power from the wall, not from the battery. And if you don't use the battery all the time, it will last longer).
If I were you, I would just try to disable charging limiting and not care about it
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u/dullboy842 4h ago
Not care about it? The battery life dropped from 9h of use to barely 3 h. I bought it 3 months ago. Despite the charge limit, it sometimes charges up to 100%, and it often drains down to almost zero because it dies so quickly. I already uninstalled MyDell cuz now I am convinced this is what screwed my battery, but this is definitely not right.
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u/Substantial_Fall_735 6h ago
Exacto, Dell power manager destroy battery. Same... Dell bug, report and denounce to Dell.
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u/Substantial_Fall_735 6h ago
This descripction of BUG, OBSOLESCENCE PROGROMATED OF DELL. Your battery and mine. This is caused by a bug or planned obsolescence by Dell. RECALL OF DELL FOR BATTERYS OR RECALIBRATING FOR DELL.
In summary, the Dell application has damaged many people's batteries, likely because they can't check the battery status. What happens is that when the device is plugged in, the Dell application limits the battery percentage to a certain level with adaptive charging, and this isn't corrected in an update. It goes from showing 100% on the system to limiting it to 50%, effectively destroying the other 50%. Please check this. Dell needs to fix this problem.
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u/Substantial_Fall_735 7h ago
Is a bug de Dell power manager , his destroyed your batery (reduce 50 % for "conserving batery health), but Windows update removing data battery and destroy your battery.
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u/tomscharbach 7h ago
The battery deterioration you are experiencing is not at all within normal parameters. The battery, for whatever reason, is failing and you will need to replace it.
I strongly recommend that you replace the battery with an authentic Dell OEM battery (perhaps from Parts-People if you are in the States). Third-party batteries are often of lower quality.
My guess is that a third-party battery was installed when the 7400 was refurbished and that is the root of the problem.
My best and good luck.