Guide: How to check battery health using the Battery Report tool in Windows PowerShell

PowerSpec_MichaelB

Introduction:

I think it goes without saying that we've all had similar interactions when it comes to batteries throughout our life. Mine was the dreaded road trips that seemed to last forever, trying to negotiate me being quiet for the entire trip to stop at a gas station for a pair of AA batteries to power my Gameboy. In those days, it was simple. If your batteries were dying, you'd get an LED indicator warning you of imminent power loss and you simply replaced the easily removable batteries with fresh ones. Nowadays with modern hardware designs, this isn't quite as easy. Luckily for our battery powered Windows computers, we have tools at our disposal to help us determine when/if a battery replacement is necessary.

The following steps will walk you through opening a PowerShell window and running a command to generate a battery report. Warning: If you are testing a new battery, you must calibrate the battery BEFORE running this tool. Check with your notebook manufacturer for information on battery calibration.

Step 1: Right click your Windows Icon on the Taskbar and select "Windows PowerShell". For home systems, admin privileges are not required. In corporate environments, elevated Administrator privilege's may be required.

Step 2: You will now be greeted with a PowerShell window. Type the following: powercfg /batteryreport /output "C:\battery-report.html". Press Enter when complete.

Step 3: PowerShell will inform you that the battery report was saved in the specified location. Navigate to the C:\ directory and look for the battery-report.html file.

Step 4: Open the Battery-report.html file. You will be greeted with a browser page containing detailed information regarding the batteries attached to your system. Information such as:

• Installed Batteries: This information will pertain to the manufacturer, battery technology and battery capacity.

• Recent Usage: This information will display the various charging states within the last 72 hours.

• Battery Usage: This information will display the rate in which your battery is discharging over time, displayed across a 3-day period.

• Usage History: This information pertains how long the system was used while plugged in and on battery. This information can go back several years.

• Battery Capacity History: This information will display the charging history of the battery in this specific system over a long period of time. If you see your full charge capacity stopping significantly lower than the design capacity, this could indicate a need to replace the battery.

• Battery Life Estimates: This is a battery life estimate based on Windows observing the various discharge rates through your average usage.

Summary:

Batteries have a finite lifespan by design. From the moment they are used, their capacity will diminish over time until they eventually need replaced. Keeping an eye on your battery health is an important step in maintaining the longevity of your notebook. We hope that the information in this guide will prove useful in keeping your notebook unattached from the walls as long as possible. Should you find yourself needing a replacement battery for your notebook, feel free to view our wide selection of replacement batteries: https://www.microcenter.com/category/4294961028/laptop-batteries. If you need help figuring out which battery is compatible with your notebook, our knowledgeable community can help you find the right one for your system. If you are already stopping by the store or simply prefer that in-person experience, the experts at your local Micro Center store will have you covered.