# Windows 8 KILLED laptop battery life



## Kleinersaphire (Apr 23, 2011)

I installed Windows 8 on my Dell XPS M1530 (It's pretty old; about 5 years) and ever since the battery life on this thing has plummeted. It was never amazing, but I have the extended battery and would get at least an hour to two hours of light web usage before it died. Now, it lasts 20 minutes, tops. Why has Windows 8 killed my battery performance?


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

What did you have installed on the laptop before Windows 8.

Sounds like it may be a driver issue with the battery.


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## Kleinersaphire (Apr 23, 2011)

Sorry for the late response! I hope someone can still assist.

The Laptop shipped with Windows Vista, but I also had Windows 7 on it for a very long time (basically from the release of 7 onwards) and never had these battery issues.


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

Did you make sure your laptop has supported drivers for Windows 8?


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## Kleinersaphire (Apr 23, 2011)

As far as I can tell, it does. The default drivers/Windows Update managed to get everything working perfectly (other than a touch-sensitive media bar above the keyboard, which may be not working due to a faulty replacement repair on my part).

For the most part, I believe i'm using Windows 7 drivers and whatever Windows 8 found for itself.


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

I bet the PC is using Windows 7 battery drivers. See if you can get a Windows 8 driver.


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## Kleinersaphire (Apr 23, 2011)

Would you have any idea of where I should look? the Dell website doesn't show any battery specific drivers, or any Windows 8 drivers at all.


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## Masterchiefxx17 (Feb 27, 2010)

That would be the problem. You should always check the manufacture's website before upgrading the PC for available drivers.

The battery could be doing bad but I see the issue lend more towards that Windows 7 driver.


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## Rich-M (May 2, 2007)

I agree with Masterchief and had a simlar situation on a much newer laptop where I used Windows 8 drivers on Windows 7 because no Windows 7 drivers were available, and the laptop never really ran right until I reinstalled Windows8. If you cannot find the drivers on the dell site I would not make the upgrade if I were you. Windows 8 has a totally different boot mode and oversimplifying the explanation, it basically saves a snapshot of Windows during shutdown, to enable the retart to bootup much quicker.


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## Tomken15 (Dec 7, 2011)

You could connect the AC, create a restore point then uninstall the battery in Device Manager then via Action - Scan for hardware changes or reboot where Windows may associate the correct driver for the OS.

You could also right click on the battery/Properties and under the Driver tab, see if Windows will update the driver - it will also display if the driver is still using Win 7 when you click on Driver Details.

Contacting Dell Support for advice on this may also help as they may have had similar complaints.


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