Power drain while in Hibernation mode *FIXED* ?

Message

kjarrett · #1 Post by **kjarrett** » Wed Aug 18, 2004 7:20 am

{EDIT: See my update on P. 3 of this thread}

Hi everyone,

Need your help. I posted here a while back on this issue:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=1668

And I have been dealing with IBM on the issue since. In a nutshell: my battery loses power at an alarming rate (3-4% of charge measured in Whr via Battery Maximizer per 24 hours) when the machine is in hibernation mode (not suspend).

A new system board was installed and it made no difference. All settings have been checked. We're stumped as to the cause, but I am convinced it is not design behavior - something is wrong. I know of one other member of this board with the exact same problem as I do, he also has a T30.

Would you please take a moment to respond to the poll below, and/or add your thoughts to the thread. I am trying to discern if this is normal behavior.

Using my T21, I would ALWAYS hibernate, and the system would begin to charge the batteries after ~ 10 days of constant use on AC power. This, I believe, is normal.

My T30 will begin charging its batteries after just two days of hibernation. This creates unecessary battery cycles which I believe will eventually cause the cells to degrade and ultimately fail prematurely.

Thanks!

-kj-

mdarnton · #2 Post by **mdarnton** » Wed Aug 18, 2004 8:14 am

Where's the "no, not at all, compared to what happens compared to 'turn off' " option?

kjarrett · #3 Post by **kjarrett** » Wed Aug 18, 2004 9:05 am

Great, I'm an idiot. How do you change a poll? I can't see how...

I should have added that option, however, the first choice, "yes, a very small amount" will suffice ... since by their nature, all batteries degrade a very small amount even when completely off.

By very small amount, I'm talking like .01 - .05 Whr, at least, that's my expereince.

Thanks, kj

JHEM · #4 Post by **JHEM** » Wed Aug 18, 2004 9:09 am

"None" option added by your friendly, neighborhood moderator.

Regards,

James

JHEM · #5 Post by **JHEM** » Wed Aug 18, 2004 9:10 am

kjarrett wrote:Great, I'm an idiot. How do you change a poll? I can't see how...

Just click on "Edit" in your message and add the additional option.

Regards,

James

whealey · #6 Post by **whealey** » Wed Aug 18, 2004 10:38 pm

Power drain during hibernation should be no different than power drain when the laptop is shutdown. (During hibernation windows simply dumps all ram to the hd).

Just out of curiosity, does your battery drain more in hibernation mode than it does if you just shutdown? Because theoretically, that's impossible.

--William

kjarrett · #7 Post by **kjarrett** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 4:15 am

whealey wrote:Power drain during hibernation should be no different than power drain when the laptop is shutdown. (During hibernation windows simply dumps all ram to the hd).

Just out of curiosity, does your battery drain more in hibernation mode than it does if you just shutdown? Because theoretically, that's impossible.

--William

Yes, Bill, that is exactly what it does, which I have painstakingly documented, via screenshots from Battery Maximizer, in a variety of scenarios/test conditions.

Bottom line, during shutdown (or if I leave the AC adapter in), the battery loses a "normal" amount of charge (same as it would if it was disconnected completely, in storage), typically something like .05 Whr (about .1%) in a 24 hour period.

During hibernation, in my tests, my battery loses anywhere from 3% to 5% of its charge. When the charge level dips to 95%, charging begins, and the cell is returned to 100%. Over time, these 5% increments will add up to one full charge cycle. I believe this constant cycling a) is NOT design behavior - there is a problem, and b) it will cause my batteries to wear/degrade prematurely.

This is why I created the poll above - to see if I was alone. I know of one other T30 owner, and one T40 owner, that have reported this condition.

To be honest it sounds like a minor issue and compared to what other people have gone through with the Repair Depot. It is not a minor issue to me, but quite honestly, I'm feeling guilty about pursuing the matter further.

IBM has already replaced my system board once. No change. We have tweaked every setting imaginable in the OS and BIOS. No change (actually the last thing we tried made it worse). The behavior happens with both batteries I have, so it's not the battery.

As of now I have stopped using Hibernation. It's inconvenient and I shouldn't have to do that but at least the problem is gone. It makes me mad but hey life is too short, ya know?

The Customer Management Team wants to look at my T30 again and I'm wondering why I should bother. At this point I don't feel optimistic they will find a solution and I don't know if IBM will consider the "problem" serious enough to warrant a replacement.

What do you think guys? Maybe I need a new poll:

1) I should just live with it this way.
2) I should keep pressing the issue.
3) I should get a life.

-kj-

Greg Gebhardt · #8 Post by **Greg Gebhardt** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 11:48 am

whealey wrote:Power drain during hibernation should be no different than power drain when the laptop is shutdown. (During hibernation windows simply dumps all ram to the hd).

Just out of curiosity, does your battery drain more in hibernation mode than it does if you just shutdown? Because theoretically, that's impossible.

--William

Are we all sure we are talking hibernation or SUSPEND?

kjarrett · #9 Post by **kjarrett** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 11:57 am

Well, Greg, please forgive me, but, this issue has been asked and answered many times in this and related threads. I know *I* am talking about HIBERNATION ... and I suspect everyone in this thread (and the vast majority of users on this board) know the difference.

-kj-

Greg Gebhardt · #10 Post by **Greg Gebhardt** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 12:04 pm

kjarrett wrote:Well, Greg, I know *I* am talking about HIBERNATION ... and I suspect everyone in this thread (and the vast majority of users on this board) know the difference.

-kj-

I am sorry if my question insulted you. I have seen misunderstandings before and believe me there are "some" do not know the difference. I follow this forum often and see the questions . . . . . some DO NOT know the difference.

Hope you get your "leak" fixed.

ZPrime · #11 Post by **ZPrime** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 1:09 pm

I have a single question: do you have Wake-on-lan enabled?

If so, when you are testing the hibernation, do you leave it plugged in to the LAN? What about when you tested "off"?

WOL will always drain a small amount of power, even with the machine off... moreso if it is plugged in, and even more if it's a gigabit nic and is trying to keep a gig link when "off."

kjarrett · #12 Post by **kjarrett** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 5:09 pm

Greg,

No hard feelings, I'm just a little frustrated, increasingly moreso with myself than anything else.

ZPrime,

WOL is disabled, both in the BIOS and the OS (XP). The earlier thread mentioned this, but I should have included that in my summary above.

I fear that this issue is not serious enough to warrant a replacement (even though it appears to clearly be a defect of some sort that can't be fixed).

I mean, look at the bad depot repair experiences others have had. My situation pales in comparison. And yet, I feel like I should fight, solely on principle alone.

Ah well, there are bigger problems in the world today....gotta keep things in perspective I guess.

-kj-

Greg Gebhardt · #13 Post by **Greg Gebhardt** » Thu Aug 19, 2004 5:28 pm

kjarrett wrote:Greg,

No hard feelings, I'm just a little frustrated, increasingly moreso with myself than anything else.

ZPrime,

WOL is disabled, both in the BIOS and the OS (XP). The earlier thread mentioned this, but I should have included that in my summary above.

I fear that this issue is not serious enough to warrant a replacement (even though it appears to clearly be a defect of some sort that can't be fixed).

I mean, look at the bad depot repair experiences others have had. My situation pales in comparison. And yet, I feel like I should fight, solely on principle alone.

Ah well, there are bigger problems in the world today....gotta keep things in perspective I guess.

-kj-

I own a company and have 36 employees, my feelings went numb years ago. <vbg>

I really breaks down to if it bothers you that much, you should take your chances and have IBM look at it. Believe me that IBM has the equipment to look at you battery drain while in hibernation. Thye know what is going on as a few have been reported with this problem.

I only use my laptop on the weekend under normal conditions. On Sunday night I put my 2373KXU away with a full charge. On Saturday morning I always start up my laptop and it shows 97 or 98% power remaining. Not even low enough for the charging system to kick in. If your is loosing 2, 3 or 4% after being in hibernation for a short time then I agree than something is wrong. I agree with you that hibernation show draw no more power than if you laptop was not in hibernation and turned off.

From my past experience with IBM, their service is great. I would give them a call and explain what is going on and you would like to do an easy-serve on it. If you can get it in to them they should be abvle to see the current draw in hibernation and fix it. I think it has to be a mother board problem but I am no expert. The other choice is to live with it or maybe not use hibernation.

I have never used it and only use suspend. It takes too long for my laptop to re-establish a wireless connection except from suspend which in seconds allows my laptop to wake up and be ready in only seconds. I do loose about 3% overnight on suspend which is fine to me as I seldom use my laptop without it plugged in and I need to drop the power some overnight to get the charging system to kick in.

Again I wish you good luck, let us know what happens.

Marc_G · #14 Post by **Marc_G** » Fri Aug 20, 2004 9:25 am

KJ-

What happens if you put your system into hibernate mode, then remove the battery and remove the power cable? In Hibernate mode, the system is supposed to be off so this shouldn't harm anything.

I'm looking for two bits of info:

1. Upon waking up, re-insert the battery and see if it lost any significant charge all by itself (maybe leaky battery).

2. Does any software complain? If something was semi-enabled during hibernate, maybe it will complain that all power was gone for a while.

FWIW, I never suspend, and rarely shut down. My computer (T30) is plugged into the AC 24 hours a day except when traveling. Now and then I discharge the battery. I have three batteries, rotated, and the worst of them is down to about 75% of its design charge. The others are in the 80%s. My point is that while you are seeing a weird drain, the net effect is probably small. Since it takes nearly as long to recover from hibernate as it does to boot, I just go to standby/suspend instead.

Good luck; let us know what happens.
Marc

kjarrett · #15 Post by **kjarrett** » Fri Aug 20, 2004 10:07 am

Hi Marc,

Thanks for your message. Excellent troublehooting technique, sir. We actually tried removing the battery as the very last thing during my initial support call to IBM, with one of the best IBM techs I've ever encountered. He was knowledgable, funny, patient, and persistent. Cool guy.

We discovered that removing the battery while the system was in hibernation mode an entry was logged (an error? information? I forget) in Event Viewer. It had to do with the ACPI battery. I can't recall the exact details. I do know we went to www.eventid.net together (awesome resource BTW) and found the reference to the code generated and researched it on some other websites; it was inconclusive. At that point, he determined the best thing to do was send the unit in for a new system board.

We did so, but the problem persists. That was Repair Attempt #1.

The power loss occurs with either of my two batteries - main or ultrabay, so I don't think it's the cell itself.

The next thing I'm going to try to REALLY rule out the OS's involvement is to hibernate, leave the battery in, and REMOVE the HD. I'm betting the battery will lose the now typical 3-4% of its power with the HD gone.

I am planning to send the unit in to the Customer Management Team folks in NC once I get through a crushing couple of weeks at work. I'm a schoolteacher and we'll be in session soon. I will be spending most of Saturday and Sunday with my T30 working on presentations and other things, which is why I couldn't send it in.

Thanks again for your post (and everyone else's). I just want to know if this is in fact a defect, and whether or not it can be fixed. We'll see where things go from there.

-kj-

kjarrett · #16 Post by **kjarrett** » Fri Aug 20, 2004 7:04 pm

FWIW, here is the event info we got when we yanked the battery out while in hibernation:

Error, Plug and Play Manager
Event ID 12
The device 'Microsoft ACPI-Compliant Control Method Battery' (ACPI\PNP0C0A\1) disappeared from the system without first being prepared for removal.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

And so it would appear the system hasn't "let go" of the battery during hibernation. Thoughts?

-kj-

Marc_G · #17 Post by **Marc_G** » Fri Aug 20, 2004 7:29 pm

Interesting info.

Definitely a defect in my opinion.

Note I made a mistake in my prior post. I said I never suspend; I meant that I never hibernate. Well, I hibernate but my computer doesn't. I've even removed the option via Thinkpad Configuration. I don't like the amount of space the file takes up on the system partition, and I don't use the feature.

Good luck. Hopefully you will keep us posted. I wish you luck. Note that I've had pretty good experience with the NC team in the past. I'm on IBM laptop # 5 now, and had to deal with the customer management group for some problems with the T20 I had previously.

Marc

ZPrime · #18 Post by **ZPrime** » Fri Aug 20, 2004 11:31 pm

Very interesting.

I'm assuming you've also tried the standard "reinstall windows, flash bios, update all drivers" stuff already too... have you tried throwing XP SP2 on there yet? I don't remember seeing anything about batteries in there, but it couldn't hurt to try.

kjarrett · #19 Post by **kjarrett** » Sat Aug 21, 2004 4:03 am

Hey ZPrime,

I just redid this T30 from scratch in July. XP, BIOS, and all drivers are the freshest available.

I have SP2 sitting here, waiting, I am only hesitating because I need to back up the system and prepare for some "hijinx" because I use a DLink PCMCIA WiFi G adapter and I know SP2 is gonna muck with the WiFi settings bigtime. I'm crushed at work right now (up at 5am on a Saturday and will be working all day today) but hope to have some time to try SP2 soon. Good suggestion, you never know what will work.

I just want the problem to go away...

-kj-

ZPrime · #20 Post by **ZPrime** » Sun Aug 22, 2004 1:21 pm

kjarrett wrote:Hey ZPrime,

I just redid this T30 from scratch in July. XP, BIOS, and all drivers are the freshest available.

I have SP2 sitting here, waiting, I am only hesitating because I need to back up the system and prepare for some "hijinx" because I use a DLink PCMCIA WiFi G adapter and I know SP2 is gonna muck with the WiFi settings bigtime. I'm crushed at work right now (up at 5am on a Saturday and will be working all day today) but hope to have some time to try SP2 soon. Good suggestion, you never know what will work.

I just want the problem to go away...

-kj-

Well, SP2 didn't so much as touch the wireless settings on my A22m, but that is with a PC-Card Orinoco Gold a/b/g, which uses its own special magic drivers. :p

I do like the fact that wireless networks now get a different tray icon when connected though.

Skywing · #21 Post by **Skywing** » Tue Aug 24, 2004 8:14 am

well i left my comp unplugged on hibernate overnight, lost 1%, nothing i would consider major

jsmit86 · #22 Post by **jsmit86** » Fri Aug 27, 2004 7:53 pm

When I hibernate, I usually "resume" to about 96-97% battery power.
It seems to be pretty consistent regardless of time.

Today I tried a full shutdown, and when I restarted a was at about 99%.

Seems not to be a problem.

I would like to test longer hibernation times, but I can't leave my T42 alone for more than about 24 hours.

kjarrett · #23 Post by **kjarrett** » Sat Sep 18, 2004 12:35 pm

Hi JSmit,

That is exactly the point, there is a problem, when you hibernate you should not lose any power whatsoever, it should be the same as when you shut down.

I'll be sending mine in to be checked out next month, between my schedule and the service center's, that is the best time to be without it.

Thanks all for your posts!

-kj-

ryan · #24 Post by **ryan** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 12:33 pm

Have you tried leaving it in suspend mode and seeing if you have the same amount of battery discharge?

It seems plausible to me that perhaps your system is going into suspension instead of hibernation, despite you telling it to do otherwise.

kjarrett · #25 Post by **kjarrett** » Thu Sep 23, 2004 1:55 pm

Thanks, actually, yes, I have tried it and verified that it is in fact hibernating...

Plinkerton · #26 Post by **Plinkerton** » Fri Sep 24, 2004 11:38 pm

I just updated to SP2 through wifi, with all the stock settings and wifi. Worked just fine. Took a while. Never stopped for a second.

I'm crazy! livin' on the edge!

nikemen · #27 Post by **nikemen** » Sat Sep 25, 2004 9:04 am

Well, I just put in a new High cap battery, and put it to bed a day later. It was on standby for the night, and in the morning. DEAD, totally shot. I don't believe it could go that fast.

kjarrett · #28 Post by **kjarrett** » Sun Oct 03, 2004 9:02 pm

Well, FWIW, here is what IBM has to say officially about power use during hibernation, on this page:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... JUJBS.html

In hibernation mode, all tasks are stopped and memory data and the current status of the computer are stored on the hard disk drive; then power is turned off. No battery power is used. When power is turned on again, the computer automatically restores the tasks and resumes normal operation.

RED = emphasis added.

So, if my T30 is losing power while in hibernation (not suspend) mode, there must be something wrong.

It's heading to the CMT soon, possibly tomorrow in fact. It's also started acting strangely, freezing on bootup. Maybe it knows it's going to the "hospital," LOL!

-kj-

kjarrett · #29 Post by **kjarrett** » Sun Oct 10, 2004 8:53 pm

Well my T30 is on its way to IBM tomorrow. With luck they will find the problem, and I'll report back. Thanks all!

Merlyn3D · #30 Post by **Merlyn3D** » Mon Oct 11, 2004 1:01 am

Well I just thought I'd chime in here, I've been talking with kjarret about this problem via e-mail and am experience the exact same problem with a 236692U. I've already reinstalled XP and installed SP2, nothing works. WOL is off in the BIOS as it any options IBM suggested to be off. Funny thing is that I turn it off, go to my campus, and 2 hours later I turn it on and it's lost almost 10%.

However, if I shut down from windows, instead of hibernate, it doesn't lose any power at all. If I remove the battery from the laptop while it's hibernated, it also won't lose any battery power.

All in all, it's the exact same problem, so it's not an isolated incident.

Power drain while in Hibernation mode FIXED ?

Does your Thinkpad battery drain when hibernating overnight?

Power drain while in Hibernation mode FIXED ?

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