Why my laptop is discharging so quickly

Laptops are portable computers that allow users to “break away from the outlet” and work in any convenient place for a certain time. Depending on the laptop model, battery life varies greatly, and it depends not only on battery’s capacity. There are a lot of different factors that may affect the discharging speed of a battery, and if your laptop doesn’t meet the figures stated by its manufacturer, there is still a possibility to correct it. In this article we will look at the main reasons why a laptop is getting discharged quickly and also discuss what can be done about it.

Table of contents:
1. Bad battery
2. Power management drivers
3. Unnecessary applications
4. Dust in a laptop 
5. Other reasons

Bad battery

The most frequent reason for the rapid laptop discharge is its battery. The older is your laptop, and accordingly its battery, the faster it will discharge. This is due to chemical processes occurring in the battery.

Before searching for a new laptop battery, it is recommended to check the existing battery for deterioration. This can be done in several ways, using both – Windows tools and third-party applications. In particular, the AIDA64 program ideally copes with checking the laptop’s battery. And we definitely recommend using this program when necessary. You can download this program for free from the official developer’s website.

Having started the AIDA64 application, go to the left part of the window to the “Computer” – “Power Management” sections. Next, check the battery for deterioration. The “Wear Level” column indicates in percentage how worn is your battery. You can evaluate the situation more accurately by comparing values ​​in the “Designed Capacity” and “Fully Charged Capacity” columns.

Data that you get from AIDA64 gives you an opportunity to determine the deterioration level of your battery and also understand if your laptop is getting discharged so quickly because of it. If the values ​​in “Designed Capacity” and “Fully Charged Capacity” columns do not coincide, you can try calibrating the battery. When this procedure does not lead to the desired result and the discrepancy between the declared and current capacity remains large, you will have to change the laptop battery to a new one, so that it will allow the device to work longer without being connected to the electric socket.

Power management drivers

Another reason for the rapid discharge of a laptop battery is connected to the problems with power management drivers. If your computer had no operating system or the installed version of Windows was completely removed, the disk was formatted, and in its place you have installed another version of the operating system, it is possible that there are some problems with the power management drivers. Often, users forget to install specialized drivers for laptops, hoping that Windows is going to automatically detect the software that is required for uninterrupted operation and install it. But the Microsoft operating system does not always cope with this responsibility, especially when it comes to a laptop.

The fact is that often laptops require not standard, but special drivers for CPU, ACPI and other components, as well as special utilities. If you did not install the drivers yourself after reinstalling Windows, try following these steps:

1. Go to the official website of the company that manufactured your laptop and find the “Support” or “Driver” section on it;
2. Download to the computer and install:

• Chipset drivers;
• Software to interact with UEFI;
• ACPI drivers;
• Specialized utilities for working with laptop power (if any).

3. Even if you have Windows 10 installed, but the drivers are only available for Windows 7 or Windows 8, you must download and install them in compatibility mode.

Pay attention to the software for BIOS on the manufacturer’s website. Often you can find updates that will allow the power supply to work normally.

It is important to note that Windows 10 automatically compares the version of the driver installed on the computer with the version that it can automatically download and install. If, as a result of the comparison, it turns out that the installed drivers are old, Windows will automatically update them. To avoid this, disable the Windows 10 drivers update.

Unnecessary applications

Many users often have a huge number of applications working in the “background” on their computers. Some of these applications may actively consume energy, which leads to the rapid discharge of the laptop. If the program frequently accesses the hard disk or processor, but it is not used constantly, it is better to turn it off to save the charge of the laptop battery.

Go to the list of automatically launched Windows applications and see if there are any programs among them that you do not use on a regular basis. For example, these could be torrent clients, applications for automatic system optimization, photo editors, and many other applications. Disable programs that you do not need regularly.

Dust in a laptop

Another reason that may easily lead to a rapid discharge of the laptop battery is the presence of a large amount of dust inside the computer case. Dust in the case leads to increased overheating of computer components, which, in turn, necessitates a rapid rotation of the coolers. The faster the coolers rotate, the more energy is consumed during the autonomous operation of your computer.

To fix this problem, it is recommended to clean the laptop and change the thermal paste in it.

Other reasons

There are some other reasons that may lead to the accelerated discharge of a laptop battery:

• “Heavy” applications or games. Modern games, graphics processing applications, drawing programs and many other applications consume a large amount of energy when working, which reduces the claimed autonomy. Please note that when the manufacturer claims longevity of a laptop battery, he means the time when your computer is coping with simple applications, such as a browser.
• Power scheme is configured in Windows incorrectly;
• Excessive screen brightness. If you want your laptop to work longer without recharging, reduce the screen brightness to the lowest level possible.

It is worth noting that Windows 10 has a setting that allows you to enable the computer battery saving. To do this, go to “Settings” – “System” – “Battery” and set the necessary settings.