How to know the percentage of battery charged?

Question

My battery is troubling me.

Whenever it goes over 97% charged level ,the charging mechanism stops and my win7 shows "plugged in,not charging" message at the power indicator. At this point the battery led that tells being charged,also turns off and never turns on even if i use up the battery completely...

Surprisingly i am able to get it back to charging state if i remove the battery while plugged in and re-inserting.

And i ve noticed that if i dont let it get over 97% charge level,the charging/discharging behaves as normal.

So i was looking for a tool or any way that notifies me at the current charge level so that i can remove the charging..

Actually i know that my batt is at some problem, and could consider buying a new one,but still a lot of its juice is left it gives over 1.5 hrs backup! .. so looking for some workarounds..

im on win7.

Answer 1

Most vendors have a t0ol such as this Dell and Lenovo for sure. Based on your model. Toshiba has their "Power Saver" application that would manage power/battery. Is that installed?

Many systems charge the battery to close to 100% but do not reach 100%, possibly to avoid an overcharge and that may extend the battery life

This describes how to use the Lenovo tool:

To change the battery charge thresholds, click the Battery Maintenance... button on the Battery Information tab. There are three options listed below the Charge thresholds section. By default, Always fully charge is selected. This option starts charging when the remaining capacity of the battery is below 96% and stops charging at 100%. Note, this setting may not help to increase battery lifespan. To have Power Manager automatically set charge thresholds that can increase battery lifespan while allowing sufficient charge, select Optimize for battery lifespan. A balloon message will notify when the thresholds change. You can disable this notification by unchecking Notify me when thresholds change. You can also create your own stop and start thresholds by selecting the Custom setting and entering your preferred values

Answer 2

You can track the charging status of battery with tools like BatteryBar. It also tells you about the wear level of your battery and some other stats.

Answer 3

This is an old Toshiba procedure but you can try step-charging the computer's battery to gain more life from it. It's worth a try before buying a new battery. Below is from the Toshiba site.

Unplug the AC adapter from the computer, and turn ithe computer on. Let the computer run from battery power until the computer turns off, indicating that the battery is fully discharged. Time this interval, but not with a software clock running on the same computer.

Remove the battery pack from the computer.

Unplug the AC adapter from the computer.

Wait at least 30 seconds. The first time through this procedure, use a soft cloth to wipe the battery pack's contacts and the AC adapter's plug.

Re-insert the battery pack.

Plug into the AC adapter into the computer again and check the fit of its plug in the wall outlet, making sure the connection is secure.

With the computer turned off, let the battery charge until the battery status light or icon glows green, or otherwise indicates a full charge.

Unplug the AC adapter from the computer.

Remove the battery.

Wait at least 30 seconds, then re-insert the battery.

Plug the AC adapter back into the computer.

Let the battery charge again until the battery status light turns green or otherwise indicates a full charge, again.

Repeat this procedure, starting from step 1, at least three times. Each time, check to see if the computer runs longer from its battery than the previous time.