Battery icon gone

[pinkywoo]

Can anyone help please? I'm not very good but have googled about this.

I noticed the battery icon in the task bar on my laptop has disappeared, so I can't tell whether to plug in or not. In the settings, it showed as 100% despite having used the laptop for 20 minutes, another time it was stuck on 52%. Now I can't find that.

In the settings, I then found a toggle on/off button to put the battery on or off the task bar, but it is greyed out so doesn't work. I googled and found a couple of things (can't remember what they were called) to switch on and off. That didn't work. I found a code to put in to Windows Powershell (to get a battery health report) but it said I don't have the authority to do that (the laptop was my son's.) I've restarted the laptop, checked for updates on Windows and drivers. Just done a troubleshoot to find and fix power and battery problems. All it found was that the time it took for the display to close when not in use was too long. That's been fixed.No real mention of the battery. It must still be there because my laptop does work without being plugged in.

[carl_pearce]

You could maybe try right clicking and 'update driver', or even uninstall, then reboot.

[pinkywoo]

I have right clicked and it said the best drivers were already installed. I am a complete beginner so, if I uninstall, how do I reinstall? Do I just restart the laptop, or right click on the same thing (I'm thinking the uninstalled files won't be there though).

[carl_pearce · Accepted solution]

If you uninstall, on reboot they should automatically re-install.

[pinkywoo]

Yaaay, that worked Carl-pearce. Thank you so much. 

And thanks again to all who spent their time helping me. 

[carl_pearce]

Just keep an eye on it the next time you have to reboot, as it may not be permanent!

Hopefully it's sorted.

[pinkywoo]

Thank you. At least I'll know what to do if it goes again.