Battery icon gone

[pinkywoo]

Can anyone help please? I'm not very good but have googled about this.

I noticed the battery icon in the task bar on my laptop has disappeared, so I can't tell whether to plug in or not. In the settings, it showed as 100% despite having used the laptop for 20 minutes, another time it was stuck on 52%. Now I can't find that.

In the settings, I then found a toggle on/off button to put the battery on or off the task bar, but it is greyed out so doesn't work. I googled and found a couple of things (can't remember what they were called) to switch on and off. That didn't work. I found a code to put in to Windows Powershell (to get a battery health report) but it said I don't have the authority to do that (the laptop was my son's.) I've restarted the laptop, checked for updates on Windows and drivers. Just done a troubleshoot to find and fix power and battery problems. All it found was that the time it took for the display to close when not in use was too long. That's been fixed.No real mention of the battery. It must still be there because my laptop does work without being plugged in.

[Client62]

Try this ...

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/add-the-battery-icon-to-the-taskbar-in-windows-10-df5599...

[pinkywoo]

Thank you for that Client62. I have tried those things but they didn't work.

[goslow]

Is your laptop using any specific utility programs provided by the laptop manufacturer to manage hardware and/or power configurations?

Sometimes these manufacturer 'helper' programs can take over the default Windows settings and prevent them from running or being changed.

[pinkywoo]

Thank you for replying. I have no idea. I think my laptop is getting a bit old now. I have had it for nearly 2 years, my granddaughter used it for uni, and my son had it before that. The battery icon disappeared about 6 months ago for the first time. I found out how to refresh the taskbar and it came back, then disappeared again last week. Refreshing the taskbar didn't work this time.

[goslow]

You will have to do further investigating to find out how/if your laptop power management is being controlled.

If your laptop is using any manufacturer utility programs, these are often found in a folder on the Windows start button in the manufacturer's name (HP, Dell etc.)

If you have inherited the laptop, you may well be seeing controls greyed out, and being told you don't have permission to make changes, if you are not an administrative user on the device. You can check that (on a Windows 10 device) by right clicking on the Windows start button and choosing 'Settings' from the popup window that appears.

From the Settings page choose 'Accounts' and select 'Your info' from the panel on the LHS. It should show you your account name under the large account icon and then say 'Standard' or 'Administrator'. If you are a standard user, you will be restricted on certain things you can change. You would need to use an administrator account on the laptop to change your account from standard to administrator.

[pinkywoo]

Thank you Goslow. I managed to find the folder and it has my name as administrator but my granddaughter's email address. Would I need her to sign in and delete her account? I have been using the laptop for 2 years and the battery icon controller has only been greyed out very recently. Could it have been greyed out during an update? I also found Acer Power Management (My laptop is an Acer). It says Battery Level 0% Plugged In. It still says the same an hour later, but when I unplug the laptop, I can use it for 20-30 minutes before I plug it in again. I don't leave it any longer in case it shuts down.

[goslow]

If you are an administrator you should be able to make any necessary changes.

How old is the laptop and is the battery original to the laptop?

Try running a battery report (assuming Acer Power Management does not stop you from doing this)

https://www.windowscentral.com/generate-battery-report-windows-10

The first two numbered parts of the instructions are not very clear so elaborating a bit on those ...

1. Right click on the Windows Start button (bottom LHS of the screen) and choose 'Search'

2. In the search box type 'cmd' (without the quotes). In the popup that appears for command prompt choose the option to 'Run as administrator' (on the RHS of the popup window). If you are prompted, choose Yes to make changes to the device. Carry on with the rest of the instructions

Read the article on how to analyse the report. Look at the sections on 'design capacity' compared to 'full charge capacity' to see how much capacity your battery has compared to its design capacity.

Also at the very end of the report it should give you an expected current run time for the battery based on its past run times.

[pinkywoo]

I have found a few documents my son and granddaughter saved on the laptop from 2014 so probably a little older than that. As far as I know it is the original battery.

I've managed to open COMMAND PROMPT but all it says is

Microsoft Windows (Version 10.0.19045.4412)

C:\Users\Andrew>

(My son let Andrew borrow the laptop for a short time although I can't find any documents he's saved. I think he only used it for job searching.)

Right clicking only brings up the choice of Mark, Paste, Select All, Scroll, Find. It has Copy greyed out. I've tried typing Run as Administrator but it says that is not recognised as an internalor external command.

[goslow]

I think you might need to get a tech-savvy friend, family member, neighbour etc. to help you go through the instructions in the link provided and run the battery report.

You are not too far off doing it if you have the command prompt window up but it is not that obvious if you are unfamiliar with running command line instructions.

Once you have that command prompt window open (the bit where it says C:\Users\Andrew>) you should then be able to type in the text exactly as below

powercfg /batteryreport /output "C:\battery_report.html"

Then press the enter key. The process should run and should then show on screen

Battery life report saved to file path c:\battery_report.html

This will create a file called

battery_report.html

in the C: drive

Opening that file, via file explorer, (as shown in the pictures in the instructions) should give you the battery report

If you are using a 2014 laptop, with its original battery, it may be the battery calibration has gone adrift (if it always shows 0% when the icon is present) or you may possibly need a new battery. The battery report might help pin this down a bit further by showing you the battery status and stat's.