Laptop Battery.

[jrmelb]

Is there any software that will alert you to the power cord being disconnected from a laptop and/or to the battery reaching low levels.

[4wd]

Windows will alert you when your battery gets low, first will be a warning, then there'll be a critical alert, followed by standby, hibernation, or shutdown (depends on how you have it configured).

Control Panel->Power Options

[tomos]

Not a direct solution, but works for me - I have different screen-brightness settings for battery and electricity.

In Win8 I get a full screen banner when the battery is down to 10%. But have a good look around the power options as 4wd suggests.

[Innuendo]

Isn't there usually an icon down in the system tray that shows whether you are on AC or battery?

[tomos]

Isn't there usually an icon down in the system tray that shows whether you are on AC or battery?

It doesnt notify of the change though (power => battery).


FWIW just discovered it is a convenient way of getting to the power options though, via right-click.

[Vurbal]

Isn't there usually an icon down in the system tray that shows whether you are on AC or battery?

It doesnt notify of the change though (power => battery).

The icon always changed on my old WinXP laptops.

[tomos]

^ yeah, sorry, I wasnt clear there: I meant no notification in a more in your face manner, e.g. popup. Taskbar on autohide here doesnt help either, but I dont know how the OP (who's looking for this) works, so that may be the solution.

[4wd]

Knowing what OS the OP is talking about would go a long way towards suggesting anything.

[jrmelb]

Yes - the OS is Windows 7.

[4wd]

YTOTPC^* - Pretty boring, any time there's a power state change it'll pop up a message box.  This could be connecting or disconnecting AC power.

Code: (autoit)

#Region ;**** Directives created by AutoIt3Wrapper_GUI ****
#AutoIt3Wrapper_UseUpx=n
#EndRegion ;**** Directives created by AutoIt3Wrapper_GUI ****

;--- Tray Menu ---
Opt('TrayMenuMode', 3)
TraySetClick(16)
$exititem = TrayCreateItem('Exit')


; WMI object creation for CIMV2 namespace
$gobjWMI_CIMV2 = ObjGet("winmgmts:\\.\root\cimv2")

; WMI event notification sink for power management
$gobjWMI_PowerEVT_Sink = ObjCreate("WbemScripting.SWbemSink")
ObjEvent($gobjWMI_PowerEVT_Sink, "PowerEVT_SINK_")


; Build notifier object for power management events
$gobjWMI_CIMV2.ExecNotificationQueryAsync($gobjWMI_PowerEVT_Sink, "Select EventType from Win32_PowerManagementEvent")


;; Sleep forevAr - make sure to build a hotkey somewhere to allow you to terminate this process...
While 1
	$nMsg = TrayGetMsg()
	Switch $nMsg
		Case $exititem
			Exit
		Case Else
	EndSwitch
	Sleep(100)
WEnd

; Power Management event sink function
Func PowerEVT_SINK_OnObjectReady($wmiObject, $wmiAsyncContext)
	$intEvent = $wmiObject.EventType

	Switch $intEvent
		Case 4
			; Machine is entering suspend")
		Case 7
			; OS reports resume from suspend is complete")
		Case 10
			; AC <-> DC switch
			MsgBox(48, "YTOTPC", "Excuse me but you have suffered a AC/DC event." & @CRLF & @CRLF & "This could be because you tripped over the power cord" & @CRLF & "or inadvertently plugged it in.")
		Case 11
			; OEM Power event...
		Case 18
			; Hardware triggered resume from suspend...
		Case Else
			; You can case these out from the constant defines mentioned earlier in this thread
	EndSwitch
EndFunc   ;==>PowerEVT_SINK_OnObjectReady

* You Tripped Over The Power Cord