Various laptop makers have proprietary laptop battery checkers & testers. HP has Battery Check, Dell now has the Dell ControlPoint software, but is there a good & preferably free utility that tests batteries in a variety of laptops? I've seen (30 days to try, $24 to buy) & that looks like freeware &, also freeware.

I think I'll try both BatteryCare & Battery Mark, but do any of you have experience with either of these, or any others? I work on a lot of old laptops & it would be handy to have some quick way of establishing battery health, other than to charge it up & wait to see how long it lasts before shutting down. Even a utility that would track the time till the laptop shuts down once disconnected from mains power would be useful. In some cases I have a user with multiple batteries, & I would like a quick way of determining which is the better of the batch. Everest will tell you.

I'm licensed so I'm not sure if it's in the home edition. It tells you every thing the battery knows about itself, but you need to be looking at 'Wear level'.

I'm looking for software or a program that can check the Battery Health of my laptop. Poor health = low charge capacity. My laptop is a dell inspiron 1420.

This is a percentage telling you how much of the battery's designed capacity is still useable. Everest is a good tip. I haven't looked at that utility in a number of years. Unfortunately, the last free 'Home Edition', ver. 2.2 released in August 2005 detects if the PC is on a domain & won't run if it is.

I'm still at work & testing on an old Dell Latitude D810 loaner laptop that's a domain member, so no go there. I'll test when I get home.

(I'll reply to your email later this evening, or in the morning, I've been swamped. Story of my life, it seems).

Everest will tell you. I'm licensed so I'm not sure if it's in the home edition. It tells you every thing the battery knows about itself, but you need to be looking at 'Wear level'. This is a percentage telling you how much of the battery's designed capacity is still usable. I installed Everest 2.2 Home Edition & it shows pretty much the same thing as Dell QuickSet; battery life remaining as a percentage & time left. I installed & it showed a little more info, like current capacity in mWh, but though there are fields for other interesting characteristics, like 'battery wear', they're not populated, at least not on the 2 laptops I tested it on, a Dell Latitude D810 & a D500. Missy Elliott Block Party Zip.

I installed & found it difficult to use & it didn't provide the information I was looking for. Then I installed by OSIRIS & found exactly what I was looking for. Like the others, this utility gives time & percentage remaining, but also gives Capacity, Charge Rate, Full Lifetime & Battery Wear. I've installed it on 3 laptops now (all Dells; a D500, D810 & a D610) & it works great on all 3. On the D610 it doesn't display 'Full Lifetime' for some reason & just continually lists 'calculating.'

, but this is a small drawback, given the other info it displays. Next I'm testing, even though I have no intention of paying $24 for a battery monitoring utility. I'm intrigued by the fact that it offers far more detail & also tests Uninterruptable Power Supply batteries. We lost power 3 times in quick succession over the weekend & I found out the hard way that both of the UPS units at my desk have dead batteries.

The part of Everest you need to be looking at is in 'Computer >Power Management'. It shows you absolutely everything that's possible to know about the battery: Designed capacity - The capacity when the battery was new.

Full capacity - The capacity when fully charged, right now. Remaining capacity - The reported capacity currently stored as charge, right now. Voltage - The current battery voltage, useful when diagnosing a miscalibrated battery[1] Wear level - The amount of designed capacity lost. Manufacturer - Who made it (Dis)Charge Rate - The current draw on the battery or the current rate of charging.[2] ID - A serial number Full charge lifetime - An estimate of how long the system will run on a full battery charge. This is all over the map, since an idle system may run four hours, but a loaded system barely one hour. [1] Wear level can become offset from the actual wear level, as it is an estimate made by the battery's electronics.

The voltages do not lie and can be used by someone with knowledge of li-ions to determine if the battery needs to be recalibrated. [2] EXTREMELY useful when comparing power use. The part of Everest you need to be looking at is in 'Computer >Power Management'. It shows you absolutely everything that's possible to know about the battery: Designed capacity - The capacity when the battery was new.

Full capacity - The capacity when fully charged, right now. Remaining capacity - The reported capacity currently stored as charge, right now. Voltage - The current battery voltage, useful when diagnosing a miscalibrated battery[1] Wear level - The amount of designed capacity lost. Manufacturer - Who made it (Dis)Charge Rate - The current draw on the battery or the current rate of charging.[2] ID - A serial number Full charge lifetime - An estimate of how long the system will run on a full battery charge. This is all over the map, since an idle system may run four hours, but a loaded system barely one hour.