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72
HP Laptop drains battery while turned off (lemmy.kde.social)
submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
42 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hello! My girlfriend's HP laptop running kubuntu 24.04 has this problem: when it's turned off (either from the GUI or poweroff) it discharges overnight, from 100% to 0% in a few days.

I searched the web to look for fixes:

  • wake on lan is disabled in the BIOS
  • USB ports have no settings in the bios, but there's nothing connected to them anyway
  • the system is actually powered off, not sleeping (at least if poweroff actually works)
  • everything, firmware included, is up to date

She doesn't remember having this problem from the beginning, but cannot tell when this started occurring

Did any of you ever encounter this problem? I don't know what else to do, and it's quite annoying.

Thank you for your time!

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

does this happen if you force it to shut down by holding the power button for +10sec, or if you remove and reinsert the battery after power off?

forcing a shutdown or removing and installing the battery, will ensure that the laptop is indeed shut down and not just halting during the shutdown process.

if you still have the same issue after this test I would guess your battery is dying, but if not you know that the issue is a software and not a hardware problem..

anyway, best of luck getting it sorted

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

on most new laptops, you cannot remove the battery that easily, you have to disassemble the back cover ☹️

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 weeks ago

An alternative would be to boot into the bios and shut down from there

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago

I hate this about new laptops...

I miss the old switch on the bottom.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

That's true, but long press on the power button still works, so you can try that instead then? 🙂

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I'll try it as soon as I can, thanks for the suggestion! I don't think the battery is dying, because while powered on the battery life is very good

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

let's hope it's a software issue, in general it's much cheaper to fix software than hardware 🙂

you can also try using the "sudo halt --poweroff" command.

if it ks software related. that command will force an instant shutdown ignoring all normal shutdown run levels (use with caution if you have open files that need to be saved in advance).

if that command succeeds as well after the battery test, you can be sure the problem lies within the shutdown run level scripts, which should help you narrow it down even more.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

okay, I think we have some news: if I kill the pc by holding the power button, after a night the battery loses 0%! so I guess the problem is that it's not shutting down properly. I tried to sudo halt --poweroff and it drained the battery as usual. I then tried sudo halt -f and something strange happened: the screen immediately turned off, but the red LED on the volume key indicating that the volume is muted stayed on, so the pc wasn't completely off. what could be the problem? and why does this happen only when I force the halt? could it be a kernel issue?

thanks for the help and for your time!!!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Hi, a bit busy today so I can investigate some more later, but the problem you are describing is in many cases related to the kernel version and has been resolved by up or downgrading the kernel version.

it might be worth looking into, at least it's a simple task, while I get some more time to investigate or offer more for you to look into.

great that it worked so far, at least now you know where the problem is :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I'll try other kernels then, but I don't know how to check if the system is actually powered off or not without waiting 8 hours and checking the battery drain XD perhaps the halt could be the key

thanks!! I'll update the thread if I'll discover something new

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

probably related to this kernel bug though:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/2059738

downgrading the kernel should fix it as a workaround it would seem.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

the halt command is like a handbrake for the kernel, so it basically shuts everything down hard and stops, but it does not power off the system without you telling it to, so that is why your LEDs stayed on after you used the other parameter.

you could just try to downgrade/ upgrade the kernel, do s shutdown for a few hours during daytime when the computer is not beeing used, then turn it back on and check the percentage.

you will see the drain if it's not a full night, but it might not be so drastic.

if it's completely shut down there should be no loss in percentage, even for a short period of time as there probably is now..

I'll try to think up another solution, but a bit busy today as I mentioned on the last post

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

My wife's HP laptop does this as well (she is running Windows). A previous laptop did this and a BIOS update fixed it. For most laptops the official response from manufacturers seems to be: eat shit.

[–] JaxNakamura 2 points 2 weeks ago

My son's Windows laptop did the same. Turns out there is a setting to make Windows truly shut down when selecting "shut down" from the menu, because normally it secretly sleeps or hibernates or something to have faster start-up times. There's also the power another device via USB option that you may have to disable in BIOS / EFI settings.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

As usual :|

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

do you have any usb devices, like external hard drives, chargers or similar connected to it? a lot of the laptops allows for usb charging/supply of power even when switched off, and this could be one of the sources for the drainage.

try disconnecting all USB cables if any are connected and see if the problem disappears?

never mind, did not see the line about no connected usb cables until after posting

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Some level of self-discharge happens over time with even a disconnected battery, but that does seem greater than expected. I'd suspect hardware issues, to be honest. Batteries are fickle little creatures that deteriorate over time no matter what you do. Maybe it's misreporting the amount of charge left to the OS.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Probably there are problems with the report to the OS because the battery health is marked as 100%, which is a bit strange for a 4yo pc. Do you think this may have something to do with the battery drain?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

There's a feature to allow charging from USB ports while a computer is off, Lenovo calls it "Always on USB." That feature is constantly using power even when nothing is plugged in. To test if any ports have that feature power off the computer then try plugging in a simple 5v 500ma usb device to charge. If it starts charging then it has that feature and will drain power. If no options to disable in BIOS then as far as I know stuck :(

I've worked on a couple recent gen refurb laptops (dell and lenovo) with that feature but lacking any disable option in BIOS. I've tried to get into the habit of plugging in whenever not being used but still end up with things empty more often than I like. Very frustrating and I think only hope is future bios update to give that option.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I'll have to check it out then, thanks for your help!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

update: I tried but when off (or at least "apparently off") the USB ports are off, my phone does not charge when plugged in

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago

Same with my Lenovo, not in few days tho but maybe in week or a two.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Laptops now use the internal main battery as a replacement of the cmos rs2032 battery (in a lot of em at least).

Not that such a low draw cause this level of drain. Maybe the battery is going out as well.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

The CMOS battery has maybe 100mA and lasts 5 years. A laptop battery has at least 400x the capacity, it would not drain in a few days.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I checked and yes, there's no cmos battery in it. Do you think this may have something to do with it?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Hard to say. But it's something to consider. Lots of other worthwhile suggestions I see too. Hopefully it's not a combination of things.

Let us know how it goes!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago

Might be related to those sleep state stuff that microsoft keep pushing. I think LTT has a video about how it causes battery to drain while off. I think the solution was either shutting it down while unplugged, or while plugged in or something. If you always shut the laptop down with the charger plugged in try to unplug the charger before shutting it down and see if it makes a difference. Or the opposite. I don't remember which it was.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

How long does the battery last while powered on?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

As it should be, the battery life while in use it's even better than my own pc

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I've had a similar issue with most of the laptops I have owned. The battery just discharges slowly when the device is turned off.

I have no idea what causes it or if it can be fixed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Instead of having an efficient chip monitoring the power button, they integrate that job into some 10nm chip. That chip doesn't get to power off, so it just pisses away power on gate leakage all day long.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

Same for me with a MSI laptop, no solution

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

This happened to my Surface pro 4 with both Windows and Linux. Could be a hardware issue.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Maybe Intel AMT running? I'm not sure it can be disabled though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Even if it was it shouldn't drain the battery that fast.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I would check the journalctl logs to ensure it is fully turning off. If here is still battery drain and you are sure the laptop is off, then its a hardware issue rather than software.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

how do I check this? This is probably the source of the issue (see this comment), but I have no idea on what to do to understand the actual cause

thanks for your time and help!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

This is a good place to start to understand what you are doing: https://www.howtogeek.com/499623/how-to-use-journalctl-to-read-linux-system-logs/

But basically you shut the computer off, then on then do

journalctl -S -3m

Will show the last 3 mins of logs which you can go through and try to read the logs up until the moment it actually turns off to see what is happening.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I have HP Notebook. This issue also happened to me. It was a battery issue. I just changed the battery.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

The battery health is marked as 100%, which seems strange to me. However, the battery life while powered on is very good, so I don't think the battery is old or exhausted. Do you think that changing the battery may be the solution?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Maybe the solution. Not Sure.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 2 weeks ago

It may be exactly this, noticed by Linus Tech Tips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHKKcd3sx2c

If their solutions don't work, try this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JoFi5yXzZk