Battery Drain while Turned Off?

Support Laptop
#1

Seems suddenly the batter on my laptop drains even with the laptop turned off. The laptop is a three year old Samsung, and according the Manjaro, the battery health/capacity is 93% of what it once was.

I suspected it was doing this, so last week i took a picture of the battery percentage, then shut the laptop down and put in in my backpack. The picture showed the battery at about 54%. Today I pulled my laptop out of the bag to use and it was dead.

I logged into BIOS and disabled the USB Sleep/Charge function in case that was doing something despite nothing being plugged into a USB port.

What further can I do to troubleshooot this issue and rule out a hardware problem? I just don’t want to waste money on a battery if the battery is indeed fine but perhaps something wonky is happening with Manjaro and the laptop is not fully turning off?

Here’s a pastebin of some hardware specs. Please let me know what further information you may need to better assist

1 Like
Battery drains excessively if system hibernate, sleep ,hybrid sleep
#2

Well, that is the single one possible software-cause for this, and you can check if it’s the case by shutting your laptop down by force, just hold your power button down until the screen goes off.
Obviously, don’t do that outside of troubleshooting like this, it can cause data loss. If you’re not logged in it should be fine though, so do it in the login screen.

#3

  1. Never, ever do that! :scream:

    Instead, log in, close all your applications, open a terminal and execute:

    shutdown --halt now

    then press the power button after the system tells you to.

    Alternatively, perform a REISUH instead of a REISUO…

  2. If the laptop still continues to lose energy, even when turned off, that is a normal sign of an older-but-not-old-enough-to-replace-yet battery.

    to confirm, post the output of:

    sudo tlp-stat --battery.

:innocent:

P.S. An inxi --admin --verbosity=7 --filter --no-host --width is a more succinct way of giving a ton of system info without multiple lshw, lspci, lscpu, and/or lsusb commands…

4 Likes
#4

If a battery is drained - then somethings draws current.

This can be a lot of things - but if you are sure you actually turned the laptop off - and you have nothing connected to USB ports - but still have the charged plugged in - it could be a sign of bad charger - or a sign of a faulty connection somewhere close to the battery connection point - maybe even a faulty battery - the last being the most probable.

1 Like
#5

shutdown --halt now

Ah, good to know that there’s a command for that. Didn’t expect there to be one, outside of such tests it’s of course never needed. Usually if killing the PC is already unresponsive a command is of course not an option

1 Like
#6

Holy Moses! You have a long way to go :joy:

#7

Don’t mind @mbod : he’s such an old fart experienced user he doesn’t even remember not knowing there is such a command.

(We live and we learn; I’m also an old fart, but I know that I know nothing…)

:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: :crazy_face:

#8

Nope: Batteries are chemistry and chemical reactions deteriorate over time. If you buy any battery today and never even use it, it will lose capacity over time and will become unusable eventually. Even the best batteries ever created on this planet (Voyager battery) will die eventually.

High humidity, salt water spray, low T°, high T°… will make it worse and we don’t know anything about OPs environmental conditions. For all we know he might be on a crabbing boat in the Bering street while writing this…

:ocean::motor_boat: :ocean:

#9

True.
But it gets even worse if its sitting in a machine and/or something internal keeps sipping it.
Try it out next time you leave for a few weeks/months.
Check how a battery left in a machine has held up, versus one you removed before you left.

(spoiler - the one you removed will have retained its vitality better than the one left connected … depending on how long … you may have even actually killed your battery by leaving it in the machine long enough … for extra oldie yoda points, you might even consider throwing the battery in the refrigerator :wink:)

1 Like
#10

As I haven’t seen a Solution being given yet: If you don’t believe me that USB charge should be turned off and the battery is removable:

  • charge it to 100%
  • remove it from the PC
  • wrap it in cling film (just to ensure the contacts won’t be touched by anything)
  • store it for the same amount of time (A week??? A few days?? At least 24h!)
  • Put the battery back
  • Boot the machine
  • Be amazed that it lost energy! (<10% over 24H is normal, ~1-5% is what I’m expecting)
  • Come back and press the Solution button below my answer.

:grin:

P.S. I’m a chemist I know a few things about batteries… :man_shrugging:

#11

@Fabby

I fired up my laptop today and it seems to be holding up. My best guess is that USB sleep and charge function was doing something, or perhaps something bumped the power button in my backup, though that last bit is unlikely (but possible, i guess).

I would expect a very minimal drain from sitting, but my issue before would be I shut the laptop down with 50-75% battery, then go to turn it on one or two days later and question whether i had shut the laptop off. i NEVER just close the lid and put the laptop to sleep, i am adamant about powering down the laptop when not in use.

Since I disabled the usb sleep and charge, it seems to be more in line with your 1-5% comment. I will continue to test over the next few days and see what shakes.

Any thoughts on my USB sleep charge theory, even though nothing was plugged in? I assume it consumes some sort of power just so the laptop can be aware if something is plugged in

1 Like
#12

One of my previous laptops had the same functionality and the power drain was in the 1-5% range that you currently have with USB charging turned on but nothing connected, so unless one of your USB ports is damaged and draining energy continuously, I’d say: that should not be happening…

:confused:

#13

fast forward to today, and the battery seems to be holding up just fine. The only thing i have changed is the USB sleep and charge setting in BIOS.

I can’t say i understand what has transpired, but it appears to be working well as it used to.

Thank you all for chiming in!

1 Like
#14

I’ve marked the below answer as the solution to your question as it is by far the best answer you’ll get.

However, if you disagree with my choice, please feel free to take any other answer as the solution to your question or even remove the solution altogether: You are in control! (I just want to avoid even more subjective opinions being posted and confusing you even more)

:innocent:
P.S. In the future, please don’t forget to come back and click the 3 dots below the answer to mark a solution like this below the answer that helped you most :
Solution
so that the next person that has the exact same problem you just had will benefit from your post as well as your question will now be in the “solved” status.

#15

done :sweat_smile:

1 Like
#16

Apparently an optimal charge of ~40% is best :wink:

Heres a results chart (for lithium ion battery removed and stored)

Storage Temperature Charged to 40% – capacity loss after a year Charged to 100% – capacity loss after a year
0 °C (32 °F) 2% 6%
25 °C (77 °F) 4% 20%
40 °C (104 °F) 15% 35%
60 °C (140 °F) 25% 40%

Then again … the battery companies swear that you dont want your batteries super-cold, but rather dry and ~55-75 degrees (f).
The dry part is true … but … the cold not being better is something that just feels, and seems demonstrably, incorrect.

1 Like
#17

I also believe this is true but are they missing a bit of info i.e. the batteries don’t take too well to being charged in cold conditions? … which I’ve been told about by someone who is very tech-savvy. :slight_smile: :wink:

#18

That could make sense with the way it is able to discharge.
By cold I dont suggest the freezer … mainly just want to avoid anything reaching 60-70 degrees.
So really … it probably should be fine enough to take out and use shortly after.
(some folks specifically suggest you let it naturally warm, then do a full power cycle)

PS. Interesting thing I found here:

PPS. I am not an expert or anything. Always do your own research :wink:

#19

I was wondering about that too after my mate mentioned it. Pre-heating would no doubt use a fair bit of energy but would help preserve the battery health. I expect this could be implemented for laptops too (and maybe phones with a big enough battery), for cold climates.

#20

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