Low Battery Notification does not pop up when battery reaches critical level after upgrading to windows 7

Rishi, Lynne,

1  It is possible that your batteries are degraded.  This has happened to me as well.  When a battery ages, its degradation may not only be a reduction in its maximum charge but also involve sudden crashes from an apparently acceptable charge level, say 25%, to zero charge in the blink of an eye.

2  To find out whether it is your system or your battery malfunctioning , set the battery levels ridiculously high as a test.

Low               95%     & set its notifications on but no action to be taken

Reserve*         90%

Critical           85%     & set its action to hibernate

[* Reserve battery level is not associated with any action other than bringing  up a warning dialog - "Critical battery warning.  You are now running in Reserve power mode.  Your battery is very low (90%), please plug in immediately.  If you don't, your computer will soon automatically hibernate."]

3  Then use the computer on battery power and look at the remaining battery level every so often so you know when it ought to come up with the Low level notification.  If that one appears then carry on using it until you see the Reserve notification.  If the Reserve notification appears then carry on using it but be cautious and save all open files before you find out if the hibernation action works correctly.  You will see the hibernation starting onscreen and can then plug it back in afterwards to check that it resumes correctly - this checks that it did not crash halfway through trying to hibernate.  If it all behaves correctly then your system is functioning correctly.

If the battery is the cause of the problem

4.1  When you have proved the system then the only culprit left is the battery.  Now you can experiment to find the lowest Critical level that works.  So try

Low               35%     & set its notifications on but no action to be taken

Reserve         30%

Critical           25%     & set its action to hibernate

4.2  If that does not work then try higher levels.  If it works try lower ones.  When you find the lowest levels that work, set critical to 5% or 10% higher than the tested level [so you are giving yourself a bit of leeway to cope with further battery deterioration over time].  Set the Reserve level slightly above the Critical level then set the Low level slightly above that. 

5.1  If, like me, you have more than one battery then you have a bit of a dilemma.  You cannot set levels that suit both batteries unless you want to change the settings every time you swap them over.  What I decided to do was to continue getting whatever remaining usefulness might be in the oldest battery.  So I used these setting

Low               35%     & set its notifications on but no action to be taken

Reserve         30%

Critical           5%     & set its action to hibernate

5.2  If I am using the newest battery, I know that the Reserve notification is thirty minutes or so before the computer is going to hibernate and I can avoid starting anything I don't want to get interrupted. 

5.3  But, if I am using the oldest battery, I have to interpret the Reserve notification as meaning that I must plug in power or manually hibernate straightaway [because I know that the oldest battery will otherwise cause a crash without warning within a few minutes].

5.4  I also bought a new battery because having to mess around like this indicates that the battery is not going to last must longer.

If the system is the cause of the problem

6.1  Check that you do not have any computer manufacturer's power management utility running.  Some of them have, or had, utilities that prevented you changing some power plan settings and such utilities might have side effects.  The only example I can remember is Samsung's Fast start - that slept the computer if you closed the lid and refused to let you change the setting.

6.2  Search the forum for advice.  I have always found that the system worked but the battery was at fault so I have no experience upon which to base any useful advice.  You might usefully start by reading the whole of this thread as several of its early posts contained guidance on what to check.

6.3  I can say that running the Power troubleshooter will probably be a waste of your time.  All it has ever done for me is to argue about how long I have set before the display dims.

6.4  You could try creating a new power plan based on the balanced power plan and see if that works i.e. it was the original power plan that was defective - in which case you could reset it to its defaults to see if that fixes it [but I would not expect it to]. 

6.5  You could try running a powercfg command to see if it points to anything in particular as a focus for your further investigations [it probably won't].  Close all open applications.  In an elevated command prompt, enter

powercfg -energy -output "%UserProfile%\Desktop\EnergyReport.html"

Leave the computer alone for the minute it takes to run or you will distort the results.  Near the bottom of the report you will see the designed battery capacity & the charge that it actually reached the last time it was charged.  Look through the rest of the report to see if there is anything that appears odd.  Of course, without spending half your life studying the subject, there is little chance of reaching any useful conclusions from the mass of data presented in that report.

Done all that and still no notification. years on and still no solution. I wish microsoft would invent an app type program that reads the percentage and notifies of an imminent crash. Often I lose work and time, and it can't be good for my laptop. Lynne

Hi

years on and still no solution. I wish someone would invent an app type program that reads the percentage and notifies of an imminent crash. Often I lose work and time, and it can't be good for my laptop. Lynne