Microsoft
probes Windows 7 laptop battery problems
Laptop
users claim the new Windows 7 OS has permanently crippled their batteries
Microsoft
said Tuesday it is looking into battery problems apparently affecting Windows 7
notebooks.
Users have
complained of battery issues -- including premature warnings that the power is
exhausted, as well as more dire demands to replace the battery -- for months,
long before Windows 7 went final.
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Microsoft
claimed that the problem was in the Windows 7 tool that decided when the
battery had been drained, or was unable to hold a charge. "We are
investigating this issue in conjunction with our hardware partners, which
appears to be related to system firmware (BIOS)," a Microsoft
spokeswoman
said today, referring to the firmware that boots the PC and initializes the
hardware components. "The warning received in Windows 7 uses firmware
information to determine if battery replacement is needed."
A very
long thread on Microsoft's support site dedicated to Windows 7 battery problems
kicked off in early June 2009, and remains active; more than a dozen new
messages were posted on Tuesday, for example.
While some
users on that thread agree with Microsoft
that the warnings are spurious,
others believe that the new operating system has permanently crippled their
batteries.
"I
have tried charging the battery while the computer is off or in another OS, and
it does not work," said someone identified as "DanLee81" today.
"It will charge for a few minutes, then stop. The battery will say it's
full when it actually only has a few minutes of charge, and when you take out
the A/C, it will either last for a few minutes, or completely shut off your
laptop. This behavior happens in all [OSes] after Windows 7 damages the
battery, not just within Windows 7."
Others
reported that their batteries underperformed, even after they abandoned Windows
7 and returned their notebooks to running Windows XP or Vista, or switched to
Linux. "Rolling back does not work either," said "Dreklia"
in another message on Tuesday. "I feel rip[ped] off!"
In some cases, Windows 7 claimed that brand new
notebooks were unable to hold a charge. "Until yesterday it used [to]
state that I had 7 hours battery life after a full charge; today after a full
charge, it states that I have 4 hours left," said "tigger1962"
of a three-week-old Toshiba Satellite T110. "I've only had it on now 15
minutes and my charge has now gone down to 2 hours 24 minutes."
Users reported a wide variety of affected makes and
models, including laptops from Acer, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Sony, and
Toshiba.
Laptop owners are not the only ones who have noticed
battery irregularities in Windows 7. Last summer, reviewers for several
publications and sites said that Windows 7 slashed battery life by almost a
third when compared to XP. That ran counter to Microsoft's promise that Windows 7 would actually increase battery endurance.
Microsoft
said it was looking for a common cause to the
battery complaints. "We are working with our partners to determine the
root cause and will update the [support] forum with information and guidance as
it becomes available," the spokeswoman said.
By Gregg
Keizer | Computerworld
About Seminar
Windows 7 is the next version of Windows client
operating system from Microsoft
built on the core fundamentals of Windows
Vista. Windows 7 offers greater reliability and performance with an improvement
in the Security features that were already available in Windows Vista. Windows 7 offers improved navigation, a new taskbar and a streamlined UI so that common
tasks done in Windows are done easier and more quickly. These are some of the
topics that will be demonstrated in the seminar: New Taskbar, Libraries,
Ribbon, Background Processes-Services and Tasks, Multi-Touch.
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