Wear level

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The Wear-level ( degree of wear , English wear level ) is a measure of the wear of a battery (eg. As in laptops ). It indicates the difference between the maximum factory capacity of the battery and the current maximum possible charging capacity.

Measure of the wear level

A brand-new battery normally has a wear level of 0 percent; however, this is only a theoretical value. This means that it is charged with full capacity when charging and can then deliver all of its power again. Since batteries lose their performance over time as well as through heat, frequent use, lack of care and improper storage, the wear level increases.

example
A new battery has a capacity of 4000 mAh. At a wear level of 10%, it can only be charged with 90% of its factory-specified capacity, in this case with 3600 mAh. Then the accumulator is full; the remaining 10% capacity can no longer be used.

Depending on the type of battery

The wear level always depends on the type of battery used ( lithium-ion battery , nickel-cadmium battery or nickel-metal hydride battery ) and the corresponding care and use. However, it is not possible to state any generally valid values, the values ​​fluctuate greatly depending on the use and type of accumulator. With good care, a battery in a laptop can still have a wear level of less than 5% after 2 years, whereas a (poor) battery can already have a wear level of over 20% after a few weeks. In order to prevent a high loss of capacity of the battery, you should pay attention to a few notes on using the respective battery type.

Determination of the wear level of laptop batteries

There are different programs for determining the wear level. Well-known programs are "Notebook Hardware Control" (short: NHC) or BatteryCare. There are also some BIOS versions that show the wear level. However, these values ​​are not entirely reliable. Especially with Li-ion batteries that are equipped with charging electronics, the specified value fluctuates considerably before and after calibration of the charging electronics.