Hibernation Draining Battery

I noticed this problem the other day. I bought a DV2000t (I think it was a t) in August last year. Typically, I leave my laptop plugged in all the time. I did not train my battery, but that last I remember hearing from the "experts" was that it was unnecessary.

Anyway. I packed up my computer for my trip home for spring break (WOO!). I had it charging right up until the time I put it into HIBERNATE (Not Standby). Approximately 20 hours later when I turned it on, the battery was critical. The indicator read zero, but obviously this wasn't the case, it was turned on but not plugged in. So I rushed, and plugged it in. Started charging at about 1% every three minutes, which is what I remember. When it got to 100, I pulled the plug and it started draining at about 2% every minute, under light use (About 80% idle process). So I charged it up before I went to bed last night, then put it into Hibernation. When I checked this morning (about 8.5 hours later) it was down to 85%.

I was wondering if anyone had any ideas as to what would be causing this. The sticker on the bottom says I have a 1 year warranty which I am still in. Is the battery going to be covered by this? Do I need to train the battery, or is that just superstition? Thanks for any insight you can provide.

 

Hibernation will still use electricity from the battery. Even when you turn the notebook off, there is still slight drain. So if you trun it back on after a number of hours, there will be less charge in the battery, than before. Its quite normal for the battery to do this.

Your circumstances seem to be similar, but does your notebook often drain the battery at 2% every minute. That would mean 50 minutes of battery life, which I don't think is correct. if the battery is working fine now, then I wouldn't worry about it. There is no need to drain and charge the newer Li-Ion batteries. You only need to do that when you want to calibrate the battery. For more information, have a look at the Battery Guide.

 

Checked out the battery guide. Thanks, really informative.

I wasn't concerned with the fact that I was losing power in hibernation mode, just the alarming rate at which it was doing so. Yes, I am sure I am losing 2% every minute (At least thats what the indicator in the corner is telling me) and that is on light use, about 20% processor activity. When I first got the computer I estimated about 1% a minute.

I think I've abused my battery somewhat. Still going to try and see if HP will replace it, its been less than a year.

Going to try running more tests anyway.

 

I do not see how the hibernation features uses the battery at all. Unlike standby, hibernation save the contents from the RAM onto the hard drive and shuts down the computer completely.

There isint a need for the battery to have a charge when the computer is in the hibernation mode.

After hibernating, you can go ahead and remove the battery, then put it back in and power up the computer. The system will restore itself to the state it was in. The hibernate file does not corrupt, which indicates that no power is used from the battery at all.

There is probably another reason that is not related to hibernation which is causing the battery to drain.

 

This is correct. Hibernation does not use any battery power; unlike sleep mode, which keeps the contents of RAM on a continuous power cycle and turns off most (if not all) of the rest of the components of the computer, Hibernation saves to harddrive (as you mentioned) the contents of RAM and then turns off all power.

I keep my computer in hibernation mode constantly. It has yet to show any power drainage even after 24 hours of being unplugged.

To the OP: There must be something wrong; I doubt that your computer is actually reaching hibernation mode and it might be falling into a sleep mode. Do you wait for the computer to turn off completely after you put it into hibernation? Or do you close the lid after doing so? If that's the case, your system might be set to go into Sleep mode when the lid is shut, and it overrides the process of the computer going into Hibernation when you shut the lid.

Best I can tell you is check the power management control panel and make sure of what the settings are for lid closure and such.

 

Its all true that hibernation is not power dependent and keeps a snapshot of your working environment on the hard drive, thus making it possible to remove power completely from the machine and restoring the same working state later. However, the actual OFF state of any modern laptop requires a minimal current to keep the logic circuits running, as can probably be noticed, the ON button is a momentary contact rather then a physical contact. Same goes for other functionalities - Quickplay, wake-on-lan etc..

 

IIRC, this was fixed in a BIOS update. Flash in the current BIOS and see if that helps. Close all other apps, set your Power Scheme to "Always On" and unplug all USB devices first (remember to reset the Power Scheme after you reboot).

 

...I don't think that last one is for me.

I've gotten into the habit of taking my battery out when its plugged in or Hibernating. My power scheme has "Do nothing" on lid closure. I do wait for my computer to go into hibernation before moving it however. I think my battery is just plain dying. Given that it has only been 7 months, I plan on trying to get one out of HP.

 

If a BIOS update does not fix your problem, I honestly don't know what to tell you. Have you done a battery recalibration in a while? That is, completely charging, then completely discharging, then recharging the battery? (I'm sure you know what it is, just clarifying for others that might not.)

It's kinda hard to say that the battery is dying. For it to be only 7 months old, it would be odd that it would have a bad cell already, especially how you describe that you use the battery. It wouldn't be out of the question, though.

Hmmm...try shutting down the computer completely and leaving the battery in it and see if it gets discharged any after a good night's sleep.

 

After 8 hours of total Shutdown, I have lost 7% of my battery.

 

It's bound to be the battery in that case. Probably a bad cell has formed. While it's debatable how much battery would be drained from a laptop that's in a completely off state, it's definitely not 7% in 8 hours.

 

When my battery is out of my laptop, it doesn't lose any significant amount of charge.

 

Since the battery doesn't lose charge out of the notebook, it sounds like the notebook may have a short somewhere. I have a lawnmower (yeah, I know) with an electric starter that does the same thing. I keep the battery unplugged until I need it. If I keep it hooked up, it'll be dead the next time I'm ready to mow. I can't find the short, and am too cheap to take it into a repair shop.

 

Well, that would point to something remaining on in the laptop.

What is staying on, I couldn't tell you. It could be something as small as your USB ports still draining power, or your the wireless networking card still drawing power. I don't think it's anything bigger than that, though, for it to drain at 7% in 8 hours. The LCD staying on, or a harddrive or CD still spinning, would draw at a larger rate than that.

At this point, I'd just recommend chatting with HP (online chat's much better than phone IMO) and getting them to take a look at it and see what's still draining power. It's possible they might not find anything. Electrical shorts and drainage issues can be a pain in the neck to find from my experience.

Sorry about my assumption earlier. I did something I wasn't supposed to do, and assumed that a laptop in shut down mode would have nothing on to draw power.

 

My roommate got a new dv6000. I wanted to use his battery as a control. I know if fits properly, I just wanted to know if this was a bad idea.

 

They should work. They use the same replacement battery, anyway.