Battery wear

[Deathcry]

Hello everyone, i got a surface pro 2 back in february and really like it alot, its the best tablet i have ever used. I have a question though, i downloaded and ran the surface pr0 2 tweek tool that was posted here, i see i have a battery wear of 4% and have had 16 recharge cycles. i am wondering is that an ok level to have or is there something i can do to try to prevent battery wear from increasing.

Sorry i just dont want to lose my pro 2 as i use it every day at work and at home. Thanks for any suggestions

 

[Jeffrey]

That sounds about normal. To get the best battery life, recharge when it goes below 30%.

 

[Deathcry]

ok thanks for that, i usually start recharging it when it hits 20 percent, i just wasnt sure if that was normal level of wear for the battery.

 

[be77solo]

That is perfectly normal, and honestly, you'll see the wear level vary wildly, so use it more as a general reference. I've had laptops with 3-4% wear right out of the box.

 

[Jeffrey]

ok thanks for that, i usually start recharging it when it hits 20 percent, i just wasnt sure if that was normal level of wear for the battery.

20% is fine. Just don't allow it to go to 0

 

[GoodBytes]

It is fine. If you pay attention, it will vary up and down that wear level percentage, as it's an estimate.
Mine varies between 1% to 4%. I also got it in February.
If it gets to 7%+ rather soon, then it could be early signs of a problem. But I don't know your usage. If you drain and recharge your battery twice a day, or you allow your Surface Pro 2 to run very warm/hot all the time, than all these is are factors that plays with the battery wear level.

 

[Deathcry]

I usually only have to charge my pro once every few days, most of the time i am just using in tablet mode going to flipboard or reading books and pdf files. I will play games on steam every few days but usually only play for about a hour or so, fans do start running but i figure cause its playing games like borderlands 2 or dead island. I just watned to make sure that usuage was normal as i would have to have to send it for repair or something already.

 

[GoodBytes]

Everything sounds fine to me.

 

[Deathcry]

cool thanks, also your surface tool is really nice, i am glad i decided to download it and run it on my pro 2.

 

[GoodBytes]

Thanks. Glad you enjoy it.

 

[jrapdx]

The "full charge capacity" given by the `powercfg /batteryreport` utility (I'm assuming that's the number we're talking about), does vary quite a bit, though I've never been able to figure out how it's calculated.

Nonetheless, it's been as high as 42,221 mWh, and the low point 40,932 mWh. Today's estimate is 41,297 mWh, and it claims 21 "power cycles" (also not clear what is a "cycle" exactly).

Maybe more interesting to some SP2 users is the difference in "estimated battery life" (EBL) using Hyper-V virtualization (vs. not using) .

Here's the deal. When not using HV/VM for >1 wk, EBL was close to 9 hours (8:55), but for a similar interval, having FreeBSD running in a VM and actually doing work (like compiling, etc.), EBL is lower, about 8:15 to 8:22, depending on the reference battery capacity (design vs. actual) used for estimation.

Leaves me thinking >= moderate Hyper-V continuous loads reduce EBL by around 10 to 20%. BTW, I was using the "High Performance" Power Plan when VM in use, possibly affecting the result. But still, I considered it to be no more than moderate overall.

So that's my firm impression of the situation, and I'll stick to it. Unless someone tries hard enough to persuade me, then there's always the chance I'll change my mind.