Windows 10: Battery icon problems on tablet

Hi,

I have a small Windows tablet which I upgraded to Creators Update by doing a fresh install. I had copies of drivers and reinstalled all of them. The only issue is the battery icon.

It shows up in the taskbar, but appears 'empty'. Tap / click on it and the text says '100%' all the time. It doesn't change if plugged in or not. The screen brightness part does work, as does 'battery saver'. It seems it just isn't getting the battery level data.

I already tried disabling and enabling both AC adapter items in Device Manager with no effect. Apart from the icon vanishing and reappearing after a reboot.

There are a couple of Power management items relating to the Intel chipset, also no effect when uninstalled and reinstalled.

I tried enabling the 'old' battery flyout and it shows 'unknown remaining'.

All suggestions are welcome!

:)

 

System icons on taskbar

Is this a PC or a laptop?

If not laptop or tablet no Battery, no icon.

 

tablet, my battery is draining rapidly.

Original title: tablet, battery

Hi,

I was able to click on the tablet icon and go to my apps. I can't do that now. Also. suddenly, my battery is draining rapidly.

Cathy

 

Hi markweatherill.

I checked two of my laptops, don't have a Windows tablet, and in Device Manager on both there is a major heading for "Batteries". Under the heading there is an device call AC Adaptor but there is also a device called Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery.

From reading your description you don't have one of these but you do have two AC Adapters which you disabled and enabled.

Has Windows picked the wrong driver for your Battery and simply loaded the AC adapter in its place? Might check with vendor site to see if they have driver in some utility or misc pack. Might even be worth resetting BIOS but you would have to document current settings before doing so. Changing the BIOS presents a little more risk.


Ken

 

Hi,

apologies for my poor description. Under 'Batteries' in Device Manager, I indeed have 'Microsoft AC Adapter' and ' Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery'.

It was working fine before updating!

 

I don't have an answer for you, but I have a similar issue. After the CU my battery icon on my laptop sometimes shows empty with a red X, but if I hover over it, it shows 100%. Must be a bug in the CU, as I didn't have it happen on the AU.

 

Sounds similar to mine. What chipset is your laptop?

 

7th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-7200U processor

 

Update: I fixed the issue, more by luck than judgement.

My tablet has four items in Device Manager called System I2C or something similar. I updated the drivers for each one to an alternative driver, which had the effect of disabling the touchscreen and sound. Wrong driver!
I plugged in a mouse and keyboard and changed the drivers back to the plain-looking I2C driver.
Next, I noticed an unknown device had now appeared, and when I updated its driver by pointing it at my saved driver collection, it updated itself to 'Intel Battery Management Device'..... and the battery icon returned.

Time for a complete system backup of this tablet.