Proper Battery Management

@Unhappy Canadian  See the post I wrote over here.

Thank you @jphughan !

Your post is very helpful!  Would you mind reposting a version here?

What we would like, of course, is something to set and forget, together with an easy protocol to follow.

Too bad it seems that plugging the computer in whenever it is convenient, and you don't need to use the battery, is not the right method.

You mention that there is no perfect or ideal solution, that any option has its drawbacks:

"The more detailed answer is that lithium-ion batteries do not like any of the following:
- Being fully discharged
- Being kept at 100% all the time
- Discharging and charging in general, since each cycle adds wear, even partial cycles."

What does it mean when you say that these batteries "do not like" these things?

Do they just affect future performance or do they even cause permanent damage which cannot be remedied?

Thank you again for your information.  I've been on these boards for only a few days and have found it difficult to ferret out things that are actually useful.

It is much appreciated!

@Unhappy Canadian  Ha, thanks for all the kind words!   I try to focus my time here on answering questions that are not obvious/intuitive, not well known/documented, and/or require a deep understanding of technical nuances in order to properly tackle.  Batteries are somewhat in that category, partially because the belief that it is good for batteries to be fully discharged and recharged periodically -- or even essential to do so in order to keep them retaining their max capacity -- still lives today.  That is true of NiCd batteries, but laptops switched to lithium ion a LONG time ago.  And most people don't even realize that the options of specifying maximum and minimum charge levels even exist!

Wow!  @jphughan  This was extremely helpful, straightforward and practical.

Like you, and especially during our current situation, it is very easy and convenient to keep our system plugged into AC power.

But of course, we do not wish to damage the battery in doing so.

Extending the lifespan while preserving most of the functionality is the desired outcome.  We wouldn't generally need to use the battery to its extreme limits (that is, if our system was working properly, but that is another matter) and even if there was not enough warning to be able to do a reset, even 50% wouldn't necessarily be a disaster.

Thank you once again.  Ferreting out the relevant information in the Dell articles has been like trying to read tea leaves.

This has been a breath of fresh air, an oasis in a vast desert...ok, I guess that is enough with the effusive praise.

But you earned it!

@Unhappy Canadian  I was reading along about your battery experience thinking to myself, “Ok, well the model of the PC in question hasn’t been specified yet....”  I was shocked when you said XPS 13, since my wife owns an XPS 13 9350 and I’ve used a few of the newer models here and there, and I would think you’d really have to work to get that system to drain its entire battery in just 2 hours.  Admittedly 19 hours may be a bit optimistic if you’re trying to get even basic work done, and if you have the 4K display rather than the 1080p version then that can take a non-trivial chunk of runtime away, but on the latest models, 6-8 hours should be achievable without much effort at all.  Just to isolate variables, have you tried testing a system that contains nothing but a fresh install of unmodified Windows 10, i.e. not a corporate image if you normally use one for system builds, plus all necessary drivers obtained via Dell Update, and no other configuration changes?  From there, just try setting the display to 50% brightness and looping a YouTube video or something.  How long does your battery last in that setup?  If you can’t get more than 2 hours just doing that, then I would ask Dell ARS to account for how 2 hours can be normal when they’re advertising 19.  I’m actually stunned that ARS said that to you unless there were other caveats or qualifiers in their response.  If on the other hand you DO see solid battery life in that test and also normally use a corporate image for system deployments, then I’d be wondering what’s in that image — or potentially NOT in that image, e.g. power management drivers — that might account for the difference. Having temps and fans running high when nothing much is going on is definitely not normal.  Does Task Manager show any obvious processes that are consuming CPU cycles?

@Unhappy Canadian  Happy to help out where I can.

I can certainly understand why your experience both with the system itself and with Dell Support has been frustrating.  Performing a clean install isn't too difficult if you really want to attempt it.  If you download Microsoft's Media Creation Tool, it will create a bootable USB flash drive that can be used to install Windows 10.  Just boot your system from that (by pressing F12 during startup to access the one-time boot menu and then selecting your flash drive), and at the step of the setup wizard asking where you want to install Windows, choose to delete each existing partition on your disk until you only see a single entry for the disk called "Unallocated space", and have Windows install there.  Then download and install Dell Update, and run that to have it download all necessary drivers.  That's your basic installation and what I would use to test battery life.

In terms of your comments about your setup, I've had a few soapboxes on this topic on this forum and elsewhere already, but I haven't used third-party anti-virus since Microsoft released Security Essentials for XP and Windows 7, and then rolled all of that into Windows Defender with Windows 8.  To be perfectly honest, in these days of new Windows 10 releases arriving every 6 months or so, my personal experience helping others and keeping up on tech news in general has been that third-party anti-virus simply causes more problems than it solves these days.  Windows Defender holds up quite well in independent lab tests these days, and it's free, and every Windows developer is basically forced to ensure compatibility with it.  Meanwhile, third-party anti-virus hooks the OS in all sorts of ways that Microsoft doesn't support or recommend, which can result in all sorts of problems especially when upgrading to a new release of Windows, including rendering the system unbootable.  And it can also interfere with legitimate application activity that the user wants to occur, and in many cases it won't give any visible indication that it's interfering with anything, which always makes troubleshooting strange problems more exciting.  And since there are so many options, application developers can't possibly hope to test against all of them -- and even if some are a problem, it's arguably the AV vendor's fault for stopping legitimate activity, not the app developer's obligation to work around a false positive.  And some AV vendors expect users to pay for the privilege of all of this.  Here are some of the issues I've seen reported with Symantec just in the last year:

• When Microsoft changed the way they digitally sign Windows updates, users who had Symantec AV installed found themselves unable to install said updates because Symantec didn't support the new standard and was apparently interfering with the Windows Update process, which it should never have been doing in the first place because Microsoft has their own routines for verifying authenticity.  Symantec gave no indication that it was responsible for the problem installing updates.
• When Google enabled some new security features in Chrome, users who had Symantec AV installed started seeing Chrome crash constantly.  Google rolled back the change to give Symantec a few months to get their AV in order, then released the new security feature again....and the same thing happened.  Again, Symantec gave no indication that it was responsible for the Chrome problems.
• At one point there was a bug in Symantec's network traffic scanning code that meant that a remote attacker could achieve remote control of a system with Symantec AV installed simply by sending that system a certain type of network traffic.  It turns out that when your code hooks itself practically everywhere into your system, a bug in your code can allow it to be compromised from just about anywhere.

I don't know if Symantec is any better or worse than other AV solutions in those regards -- maybe it's just because they're a major shareholder in the market -- but I keep seeing problems with third-party AV and see very few cases of third-party AV stopping a legitimate threat that would have gotten past Windows Defender.

In any case, if you're running both Bitdefender and Malwarebytes, the possibility of dueling AV solutions seems like it might increase your risk of strange issues, possibly including causing your system to run at high resource utilization levels that will drain your battery.  I know that on my work system, whenever my fans and temps spike, I open Task Manager and see McAfee's scanning engine consuming nearly 100% of my CPU on some scan.  But I don't get to decide what's on my work laptop.

@jphughan 

I forgot to mention... the only "qualifier" from ARS is quite bizarre.

In one sentence Mr Raj asserts that normal usage is 20-30 minutes per cell.

In the very next sentence he denies that he ever said that 2 hours is the most!

I thought he might have been confused about the number of cells, so I have written back multiple times pointing this out in every manner I can think of... but either he ignores my messages or writes back that our system is working as per design.

And apologies for our inconvenience...

Now good night... my wife is asleep, so no more

@jphughan 

We so much appreciate all the time you are taking in helping us!

Our model is an XPS 13 7390, FHD display, 16gb ram, 512gb hd.

We don't do much out of the ordinary, mostly browsing using Firefox and watching movies or TV shows.  We have antivirus and antimalware programs and a VPN. (Bitdefender, Malwarebytes and Express VPN)

But we have tested the system with all these shut off.

I would say the average usage is around 3 hours with the brand new battery.

The 2 hours is the figure all the tech support people and ARS keep insisting on.  They were very reluctant to even replace the older battery, which was getting 1 1/2 to 2 hours and tried to make us feel that they were doing us a big favor in doing so.

I am not very knowledgeable and so would be hesitant to do a fresh install... I actually wouldn't have a clue where to start, lol...we just use what Dell provided.  We of course feel that it is Dell's system so should live up to Dell's promises.

I have confronted Dell technicians many times regarding how 2 hours is normal and they all say the same thing...that is the way the battery is designed.

I was only able to get to a supervisor... and then eventually ARS ...by forcing them to confront the contradiction of this with Dell promotions on their website...hard to deny that!

There were multiple attempts made to convince us that the promises were for an upgraded battery, perhaps a 9-cell, but again, no, it was confirmed that the only possible configuration was that of a 4-cell.

So, up to ARS.

The agent, Mr Narendra Raj, provided the 20-30 minutes per cell quote.

I have tried multiple times to confront him with how this can be normal.

Mostly he refuses to reply and when he does it is only to reiterate... over and over... that our system is working as per design so there is nothing Dell can do for us.

Except offer to sell us an extended warranty!

You can understand why we are so frustrated... I think it is now 55 days that we have been dealing with this.

We have checked the task manager...as have Dell technicians doing their remote diagnostics... and nothing seemed to pop out.  We are in bed now so away from the computer but will check again tomorrow.

Oh...one more thing...my wife wants to send you a ... hope you don't mind!

Wow again @jphughan !

Once more you have provided so much useful and practical information.

Information that is in severe contrast to "common wisdom".

I checked the task manager just now...and the CPU was fairly low, with the biggest draw being Firefox, 9 tabs, total of around 4%.

That was the initial check.  A few minutes later, fan has started running and unit heating up...total draw now running between 24 and 40%, Firefox still at around 4%, system 8-10%, service host 4%, Killer APS 3%, service host remote 1%...those seem to be the main draws...it has now sort of settled down to 24% to 30% total, fan still running and unit hot, but only using the browser just now.

I might just try the clean install when I feel brave enough.  Your instructions do sound simple enough even for me.

And just to be clear...forgive me...do you recommend uninstalling both Bitdefender and Malwarbytes and then turning on Windows Defender?

I don't think we are overly paranoid but sometimes it is hard not to give some credence to all the hype...and what can it hurt, right?

Thank you, thank you, thank you...we cannot say it enough.

We are going to have to search out all those soapboxes of yours... !

@Unhappy Canadian  Maybe my advice is due to my experience having worked as an IT pro for 15 years, but the guidance of avoiding third-party AV seems to be gaining more of a foothold.  Of course the fact that PC vendors tend to bundle third-party AV trials because they get paid by the vendor of that product to do so kind of staves that off, but I remember reading an article with a list of practices that are common among security professionals that are unexpected to the general population.  One is that they don't use third-party AV.  Another is that they use password managers.  (I myself use LastPass.)

Uninstalling Bitdefender and Malwarebytes might be an interesting experiment before embarking on a full clean reinstall.  If the vaguely named "System" is showing the bulk of the usage, that to me makes AV even more likely to be culprit.  I don't know if this is true of either of those particular solutions, but I know some AV essentially acts as a hypervisor that sits underneath the main OS and therefore its activity can't be monitored in great detail from within the OS.  For example, I know that if I start a VM on my machine, I can see an increase in my CPU usage and especially my RAM usage in Task Manager, but it isn't directly attributable to any process in Task Manager -- because it's coming from the VM that can't be directly monitored from the host system.

@jphughanYour experience appears up to date as well as deep.  In addition, your advice has been clear, concise and to the point. Straightforward with less bluster inspires much confidence in those of us less initiated.

So we will be sure to follow your suggestions.  It coincides with the maxim that simpler is usually better.  Keeping these 3rd party AVs would seem to entail little added benefit along with significant risk of possible harm.

Even if this is not the cause of our current issues, this is great information and advice which will change or habits of many years...too many years.

Now go give yourself a pat on the back.  You deserve it.  You alone have made these boards worthwhile for us (and, I suspect, many others).  Dell should send you a very large cheque!

Will the BIOS power management configuration work in Ubuntu where I cannot setup Primarily AC Use?