Windows 7 battery update: Still no conclusive findings

Microsoft and its PC maker partners are continuing to look into battery problems which some Windows 7 users have said they've been experiencing. So far, there's nothing new to report, Microsoft officials said on Friday, February 5, but their investigation is continuing.

Update: On February 8, Microsoft issued a new statement, via the WIndows Engineering 7 blog. Bottom line: Microsoft says it's the batteries, not Win7, at fault for the growing number of alleged battery-related Windows 7 problems.

It's still unclear exactly what is going on -- whether there's a problem with the PC batteries themselves or there is something that could be fixed via a software update/patch. Reports about what's happening are all over the map: Some are claiming they are getting less battery life with Windows 7 than Vista or XP. Others are saying they are getting false reports that their batteries are faulty. There are a variety of battery-related complaints, some dating back to before the final release of Windows 7, in the Microsoft TechNet forums.

Given the relatively small number of reports of problems (seeing that Microsoft has sold 60 million copies of Windows 7 to date), is this just a case of normal hardware failure?  From the TechNet forums, problems seem to be occurring across a variety of vendors' systems, and aren't just isolated to a single type of PC.

One source I spoke with this week, who asked not to be identified, threw cold water on the idea that Windows 7 itself could be destroying PC batteries."There's no way a Windows 7 interaction with the BIOS would cause any temporary or permanent battery damage," the source said.

One of Microsoft's Gold reseller partners told me he received a puzzling response when he contacted HP about 30 HP NC6400 laptops, purchased two years ago, which are experiencing battery-related issues.

"I escalated this with HP this past week and they were ignorant of the issue (still waiting for resolution and callbacks)," said Scott Hill, CIO of RightSize IT. "One recommendation was to roll back to Vista (never again), another was to roll back a laptop to XP to verify if the battery was good (loss of productivity), and the final one was to replace all my laptops with a Win 7 compatible laptop (over a $60,000 investment).

There's no one "throat to choke," Hill said. If this is a driver problem, is it a Microsoft issue or an HP one?

"HP states that the drivers (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface, or ACPI) are Microsoft supplied so they are pointing to them, " Hill said. "Further, I noticed in the Device Manager that I have one Unknown Driver – “ACPI\HPQ0004”. What drives me nuts is that this has occurred across all platforms at the same time – what is the possibility that 30 LION batteries in 30 laptops having the same condition? The only consistent variable is the ACPI drivers from Microsoft."

Hill continued: "We show 100% charge using the 'Balanced Power Plan' and after about 10 minutes it reaches 92% then falls to 7% in less than a minute and shuts down the laptops – when previously with XP we were getting three to four hours per charge. What’s worse, is that we lost the utilities we used to have to calibrate and discharge the batteries to avoid battery memory issues. I think there is a bug in the ACPI in cycling the batteries through the charging, etc."

If others have reported problems to Microsoft or their PC providers and have open helpdesk tickets, I'd be interested to hear what you're hearing back....