Poor battery life in new Recoil

F

fola

Member
Hello there!

I am the happy owner of a quite new Recoil laptop (relevant specs at the bottom. Sorry if it's in German but should be mostly self-explanatory).
Happy... with the exception of battery life, which I find sometimes a little poor.

Example: I start up the laptop and when startup completes the battery is at 24%. The laptop is in office mode and I slide the battery power management all the way to the left (maximise battery duration).
Well... after less than 10 minutes of light web browsing I am suddenly at 6%, and after another minute the laptop shuts off because of empty battery.

Is that normal? How can I check if everything is all right with my battery?

Thanks in advance for your help!


Gehäuse & Display
Recoil-Serie: 15,6"-QHD 165 Hz sRGB 100 % LED-Widescreen, matt (2560 x 1440)
Prozessor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 8 Core 11800H (2,3 GHz, 4,6 GHz Turbo)
Arbeitsspeicher
32 GB Corsair 2933 MHz SODIMM DDR4 (2 x 16 GB)
Grafikkarte
NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 3070 – 8,0 GB GDDR6-Video-RAM – DirectX® 12,1
1. M.2 SSD-Laufwerk
500 GB-SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (bis zu 3500 MB/R, 3200 MB/W)
1. M.2 SSD-Laufwerk
1 TB-PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (2000 MB/R, 1100 MB/W)
Speicherkartenleser
Integrierter SD-Speicherkartenleser
AC-Adapter
1 x Netzteil 230 W
Netzteilstromkabel
1 x schweizerisches Netzkabel, 1 Meter (SchuKo Stecker)
Batterie
Integrierter 3-Zellen-Lithium-Ionen-Akku der Serie Recoil (94 Wh)
Wärmeleitpaste
THERMISCHE STANDARDWÄRMELEITPASTE FÜR AUSREICHENDE KÜHLUNG
Soundkarte
2-Kanal-High-Definition-Audio + Mikrofon-/Kopfhörerbuchse
WLAN-Karte
GIGABIT-LAN & WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 (2,4 Gbps) + BT 5.0
USB-/Thunderbolt-Optionen
1 x USB 3.2-ANSCHLUSS (Typ C), 3 x USB 3.2-ANSCHLÜSSE
Tastatursprache
HINTERGRUNDBELEUCHTETE SCHWEIZERISCHE MECHANISCHE PER-KEY-RGB-TASTATUR
Betriebssystem
Windows 10 Home 64 Bit – inkl. Einzellizenz [KUK-00001]
Sprache des Betriebssystems
Italien/Italia – Italienisch
Windows-Wiederherstellungsmedium
Mehrsprachige Windows 10-Wiederherstellung - unbegrenzte Downloads vom Online-Konto aus
Bürosoftware
KOSTENLOSE 30 Tage-Testversion von Microsoft 365® (Betriebssystem erforderlich)
Antivirus
KEINE ANTIVIRUS-SOFTWARE
Browser
Firefox™
Tastatur & Maus
INTEGRIERTE 2-TASTEN-TOUCHPAD-MAUS
Webcam
INTEGRIERTE 1 MP-HD-WEBCAM
 
ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
If you're using the Windows battery level indicator then that's known to be less than totally accurate. It's actually quite difficult to accurately measure the state of charge of a battery in any case, it's even harder to predict the charge remaining. It's also not uncommon for the Windows state of charge indicator to get out of sync with the actual state of charge of the battery, when that happens the values shown are in the realm of fantasy.

The first thing I would do then is to re-synchronise the Windows charge indicator with the actual state of charge of the battery. The process of doing that will also indicate whether your battery is good or bad....

1. Shut the laptop down fully (not sleeping), power it off and put it on charge for at least 24 hours. If the charging LED does not indicate fully charged after this time then leave it until the LED does indicate fully charged. Do not use it at all during this time.

2. Remove the charging cable, so it's running on battery alone, and go to the battery power option settings. Ensure that the low battery level is set to 10% with an action of notify. Ensure that the critical battery level is set to 5% with an action of shutdown. Turn off the sleep and hibernate timers so that the laptop stays on until the critical battery level shuts it down. Ignore the battery power management settings, set it to one value and leave it there until the laptop shuts down.

3. You can use the laptop normally during this period, but do not shut it down, sleep or hibernate it. Leave the laptop on and running all the time.

4. Eventually you'll see the low battery level warning. Ignore this and do nothing (but do save any work!). At some point after this the laptop will shut down when the critical battery level is reached. Note how long the laptop has been running on battery for, if it's less than about 1 hour then suspect a possible bad battery.

5. Now leave the laptop fully shutdown and powered off and place it on charge for at least 24 hours. If the charging LED does not indicate fully charged after this time then leave it until the LED does indicate fully charged. Do not use it at all during this time.

The Windows battery level indicator should now be in (rough) sync with the actual state of charge of the battery. If you still see very short battery life I would phone PCS and discuss your options with them.
 
Martinr36

Martinr36

MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Also bare in mind that batteries are only covered for 6 months under warranty

7.7Laptop Batteries come with a maximum 6 month warranty, regardless of which warranty option is purchased.
 
F

fola

Member
So, in office mode, full battery saving and very light web browsing for about half the time, it took 4 hours and 20 minutes to go from 100% to 5% auto-hibernate.
I guess the battery is fine and that was just an issue of poorly reported charge by the windows level indicator. :)

Many thanks once again for your help. I usually just lurk the forums, but you do an amazing job at helping us all. Keep it up!
 
D

Dutchos

Bronze Level Poster
fola said:
office mode and I slide the battery power management all the way to the left (maximise battery duration).
Click to expand...

Hi @fola how did you adjust your battery settings? I don't have any power management options in Windows and can't see any in the Control Centre app either? thanks
 
F

fola

Member
Dutchos said:
Hi @fola how did you adjust your battery settings? I don't have any power management options in Windows and can't see any in the Control Centre app either? thanks
Click to expand...
Just click on the battery symbol in the tray. A slider pops up, and I just slide it all the way to the left (max power saving).
 
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