Why does a laptop say it’s at 6-8% charge, and then it dies, but when it’s at a higher charge, going from 60% to 59% takes a while?
In: Technology
The reason is due to how batteries work. A typical laptop battery has an operating range between 10.1-12.9V. The voltage drops as it discharges and is restored by charging.
The remaining battery capacity is typically figured out from the voltage. So we can say a range of 2.8V each .1V will come out to about 4% of your battery capacity.
However there is more than just voltage at play. Power usage is measured in watts. Watts is equal to the voltage x amperage.
So as your battery discharges the laptop still needs the same amount of power to run. Let’s say your laptop draws 12 watts. So at 12V the laptop will pull 1 amp. At 11V the laptop will now draw about 1.1A. So because the laptop now draws more amps the voltage will drop faster thus causing your percentage to go down faster. Some computer companies know about this and calculate the remaining watt hours of the battery and report the percentage based on that. That is why some computers may have a very even discharge and others may discharge faster at lower percentages.
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