Battery Wear

[superlawyer15]

So, my surface went from reporting 0% wear to 5% then back to 0% and now to 7%

What should I make of this?

I called Microsoft and the rep said it should settle around 5% and hold there for some time but my experience with laptops past is much different.
The wear would slowly rise from 0% to 10% over the course of a year.

What do you guys think?

 

[jpw21683]

How are you determining battery wear? BatteryBar?

 

[superlawyer15]

Yes ...battery bar

 

[jpw21683]

I would just keep an eye on it. If it starts getting considerably worse quickly, then you should be concerned.

I don't know how Battery Bar measures this, and/or how accurate it is. I've had brand new laptop batteries start at 10%.

 

[superlawyer15]

I don't know if its a sensor issue (cant be an app issue because all report the same thing) or a battery issue.

every time I plug it in it charges to the full MaH, and then the battery reports it has 0% wear
it is only when the battery gets to 30%/40% that it begins to report any wear

 

[Jrexxx]

I have the same thing when I use battery bar on my macbook pro running bootcamp, and I think that I've figured out the reason for this: The battery usually doesn't charge up to 100 %. This is a feature that gives the battery a longer life time because lithium based batteries don't like to be fully charged or fully emptied. So I figuerd out that battery bar considers not arriving to "true 100%" as wear.

 

[superlawyer15]

Hmm your theory makes a ton of sense;
but how does that account for the changes in level 5%-7% and then going back down to 0%
wouldn't it be a set point at which the battery doesn't charge any further? or is that range close enough?

I think it would be beneficial if a few other surface pro owners would track their battery wear levels and report back in a few days
this seems like something which would be of benefit for to community as a whole

 

[Jrexxx]

The change in percentage may ne due to the fact that the battery doesn't get charged to the same extent each time, it stops randomly around a certain figure. I have a Vaio that gives you the option to charge to "around 80%".

 

[rdubmu]

Yes ...battery bar

what exactly is battery bar?
Sent from my Windows 8 device using Board Express Pro

 

[superlawyer15]

BatteryBar Pro: Windows Battery Life Tracker

 

[twonline]

Same problem here on Surface PRO 128GB.....

Yesterday wear level was reported as 0%, after a charge now it's reported as 2% in AIDA64 and 2.3% in HwINFO64. My charge cycles are only at 7 or 8.

 

[superlawyer15]

I think its an issue with how wear is being reported

I've had my surface since launch and its gone as high as 16% ...it always drops back down

 

[garyjk]

go to a elevated command prompt and then type the following:

powercfg /batteryreport
press enter

an extensive html file will be created. just look at the path in the return message and open it up.