Laptop Battery Depletes in Several Days

B

Boris_yo

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 22, 2011
Messages
224
Hi,

I have an almost 10-years old lenovo G560 laptop that I didn't use often. I always used it on AC with battery inside with lenovo software setting that keeps it under 80% to prolong it's life.

Strangely it depletes in several days while laptop is being shut down. I thought only NiMH batteries deplete this fast but mine is lithium-ion:
20210914_145332.jpg
 
All batteries have internal resistance, and it gets worse as they age. Yours sounds bad. The circuitry inside the battery also saps some power from the cells over time. Also, 80% is not the ideal state of charge for storage, it's just a lot better than 100%. The ideal state of charge for storage would be 30-50%. If you can't disable charging or force a lower charge limit than 80%, then when you get your new battery, just charge it to 50% and remove it, since you're running off AC all the time.
 
JSHamlet234 said:
All batteries have internal resistance, and it gets worse as they age. Yours sounds bad. The circuitry inside the battery also saps some power from the cells over time. Also, 80% is not the ideal state of charge for storage, it's just a lot better than 100%. The ideal state of charge for storage would be 30-50%. If you can't disable charging or force a lower charge limit than 80%, then when you get your new battery, just charge it to 50% and remove it, since you're running off AC all the time.
Click to expand...
my laptop barley has in usage as well and in between uses the battery is always 95%+ drained .....they some how use power even when off these days
 
what windwos you guys on? 8/10 have fastboot/fast startup that are really a form of hibernation, which still draws power. could be that, if its enabled.

but yes, as batteries get older, even if not used, they do "wear out". ive pulled new in box batteries that are 5ish years old and are dead dead.
 
primetime said:
my laptop barley has in usage as well and in between uses the battery is always 95%+ drained .....they some how use power even when off these days
Click to expand...

Not sure it's a matter of these days because lenovo G560 was manufactured in 2010 Q2 and while it's battery drains when laptop is powered off I don't observe the same behavior with DELL Latitude E6420 battery that was manufactured in 2011.

pendragon1 said:
what windwos you guys on? 8/10 have fastboot/fast startup that are really a form of hibernation, which still draws power. could be that, if its enabled.

but yes, as batteries get older, even if not used, they do "wear out". ive pulled new in box batteries that are 5ish years old and are dead dead.
Click to expand...
I am on WIndows 10 Home Edition, 64-bit, 21H1. Was on Windows 7 before that and battery still drained with laptop being shut down.
 
Boris_yo said:
Not sure it's a matter of these days because lenovo G560 was manufactured in 2010 Q2 and while it's battery drains when laptop is powered off I don't observe the same behavior with DELL Latitude E6420 battery that was manufactured in 2011.


I am on WIndows 10 Home Edition, 64-bit, 21H1. Was on Windows 7 before that and battery still drained with laptop being shut down.
Click to expand...
Lithium Ion batteries start to degrade as soon as they are manufactured.
how long can the Dell run on the battery?
 
Zepher said:
how long can the Dell run on the battery?
Click to expand...
When on idle its entire battery depletes in under 10 minutes. It's wear level was above 60% a year ago, today it's maybe 80%. 2 years ago when DELL laptop was turned off, the battery used to hold charge for weeks, unlike lenovo G560 that drains completely in several days. However lenovo G560 battery depletes gradually and lasts over 2 hours on idle.
 
Boris_yo said:
Not sure it's a matter of these days because lenovo G560 was manufactured in 2010 Q2 and while it's battery drains when laptop is powered off I don't observe the same behavior with DELL Latitude E6420 battery that was manufactured in 2011.


I am on WIndows 10 Home Edition, 64-bit, 21H1. Was on Windows 7 before that and battery still drained with laptop being shut down.
Click to expand...

pendragon1 said:
8/10 have fastboot/fast startup that are really a form of hibernation, which still draws power. could be that, if its enabled.
Click to expand...
^^and that?! 7 also had hibernate, it would do that too.
if its not that, the system has some type of draw when it s off. its a little late to be dealing with it, you should probably continue to live with it, like you have for 10 years....
 
Last edited:
pendragon1 said:
what windwos you guys on? 8/10 have fastboot/fast startup that are really a form of hibernation, which still draws power. could be that, if its enabled.
Click to expand...

Hibernation aka suspend to disk writes the ram to disk and turns the whole thing off. You can hibernate on a desktop and unplug it from the wall. There's no power used. Of course a soft power switch means a tiny leakage, but it's not bad for a battery powered device. Time keeping might use the big battery if it's available rather than the coin battery, but maybe not.

Fast boot is more or less storing/using a hibernation state taken at some point during the last clean boot, so a good amount of work can be skipped. Still doesn't use power when it's off.

In short, it's probably because the battery is old. Unfortunately, unless that size is still made for new laptops, it may be hard to get a quality replacement battery made with fresh cells. If you get OK life in use and none of the fun runs fine from 100% -> 50% then suddenly dies before 40% depending on exact usage, then I'd just make sure to plan ahead to top it up before taking it out.

(Edit: fix spelling)
 
Last edited:
OK, well I just read somewhere else about an exciting feature of hibernation on modern Windows; apparently it can use the RTC wake-up timers to start up for scheduled tasks, which could end up draining your battery too. (UGH) If you wanted to check that, you could hibernate/shutdown and pull the battery and see if it still drains over a few days.
 
toast0 said:
OK, well I just read somewhere else about an exciting feature of hibernation on modern Windows; apparently it can use the RTC wake-up timers to start up for scheduled tasks, which could end up draining your battery too. (UGH) If you wanted to check that, you could hibernate/shutdown and pull the battery and see if it still drains over a few days.
Click to expand...
so i was kinda right?! also, its common curtesy to document you edits...

1632516744547.png
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top