Program for testing laptop battery health, life, etc etc

[lazerorca]

I'm pretty certain a google search would turn up something, but I like to ask from someone who has possibly tried out a few solutions already.

 

[mraikes]

Nirsoft has the very handy BatteryInfoView: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/battery_information_view.html

 

[lazerorca]

Nirsoft has the very handy BatteryInfoView: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/battery_information_view.html

oh nice!!! Do you know of one that will "stress test" a battery like run the CPU, onboard graphics, fan, and anything else on full blast to test the battery life?

 

[mraikes]

No, I don't know what software does that. But since so many laptop reviews include comparisons of battery life, such a thing must exist somewhere.

 

[HCHTech]

I remember reading an article by one of the review site or magazines - I guess it's been a while ago now - anyway, they talked about building a little robot to press the space bar once every X seconds to keep the computer awake until the battery ran down. Meanwhile, there was a batch file writing a log entry every second or every minute. After the computer was dead, the plugged it in, booted it up and checked that log to see how long it lasted. Pretty low tech, but effective I guess.

 

[mraikes]

I remember reading an article by one of the review site or magazines - I guess it's been a while ago now - anyway, they talked about building a little robot to press the space bar once every X seconds to keep the computer awake until the battery ran down. Meanwhile, there was a batch file writing a log entry every second or every minute. After the computer was dead, the plugged it in, booted it up and checked that log to see how long it lasted. Pretty low tech, but effective I guess.

That's a simple approach. Except the robot part. I think I'd just create a simple batch file/timestamp logger, set laptop for max power (bright screen, no sleep, etc). and then run any of the already existing stress test programs to crank all the parts until the battery dies.

I really have no need to do anything like this - but I guess it's a good mental exercise!

 

[Krynn72]

If you can find a copy, I've used Battery Eater to good effect before. Their website is down though, so it appears unsupported now.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/benchmark-laptops-battery-life-battery-eater/

 

[lazerorca]

I used battery eater. it's pretty cool except it won't log any info for me.

 

[red12049]

If you can find a copy, I've used Battery Eater to good effect before. Their website is down though, so it appears unsupported now.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/benchmark-laptops-battery-life-battery-eater/

I just dl'd it from the link in that story...

Rick

 

[Krynn72]

I just dl'd it from the link in that story...

Rick

Oh, haha.

 

[Altster]

I just dl'd it from the link in that story...

Rick

Me too. This will come in handy at the store.

Thanks for posting this.

 

[MichaelBits]

Don't forget the built in windows utilities.
Admin CMD:

powercfg -energy -output c:\insert save location and file name

I generally do:

powercfg -energy -output c:\%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\Power.html

Gives lots of good info.