14 DAY TRIAL // At the start of this year, Microsoft fired back at critics claiming that Windows 7 was erroneously presenting “Consider Replacing Your Battery” warnings, noting that the messages were valid, and that users indeed needed to replace their hardware. Well, it appears that there are some exceptions. According to the Redmond company, Windows 7 can also present incorrect "Consider replacing your battery" warnings.
This can happen to users running older HP notebooks with the last Windows client from the software giant.
Such customers should disregard the message from the Windows Battery Meter, and the additional warnings from the OS.
“Additionally, a red "X" may appear on the battery icon in the notification area. However, the battery may still be in sufficient health. This issue is known to occur on the DV9000 and DV 67000 series of notebooks,” the software giant said.
Microsoft blames the problem on the fact that the older notebook models were not designed with Windows 7 in mind.
In this regard, the Design Capacity of the battery is incorrectly reported to Windows by the system firmware (BIOS).
“The "Consider replacing your battery" message is displayed when the Last Full Charge Capacity is less than 40% of the reported battery Design Capacity.
“Both the Last Full Charge Capacity and the reported battery Design Capacity are retrieved by Windows from the system ACPI firmware (BIOS). On these older HP notebook models, the retrieved battery Design Capacity is incorrectly reported as 88,800mWh even though the battery’s actual design capacity is lower.
“This firmware error can then cause the "Consider replacing your battery" warning to incorrectly display when the Last Full Charge Capacity is still greater than 40% of the battery’s actual design capacity,” Microsoft added.
The Redmond company has already issued an update designed to resolve this problem. Essentially, the refresh which is offered via Windows Update will remove the erroneous warnings.
According to the software giant, the update will only be offered to affected computers, and will only resolve the issue described above, but it will have no impact on the battery life whatsoever.
“Additionally, HP provides a Battery Check Utility that may be installed as part of the HP Support Assistant. Running the Battery Check Utility will give an accurate view of the battery health and whether replacement should be considered,” Microsoft added.