X201s - battery goes flat when closed in case?

I have an x201s - with lenovo power mananger v 3.20.

Idle timers are set for running on batteries to go to sleep after 10 mins, hibernate after 30 mins and SLEEP when the lid is closed.

If I just close the lid and put it away in the bag... a couple of days later the battery is flat (zero%) and I have to plug it in to wake it up.

It's sleeping when I close the lid... but not switching to hibernate as I was expecting it should.

I know I can set the "close lid" action to hibernate... but should I need to?

 

I think you have to turn on hybrid sleep:

Start/search box, type on cmd => right click => run as administrator

powercfg /hibernate on

see if it works

 

Thanks - that did it.

It also turns out the lenovo power manager is not storing the settings that I changed. Setting them in the windows 7 control panel power applet made them stick.

e.g. open Lenovo power manager - set action on closing lid under battery power to hibernate - hit apply - close PM, open PM and its set to sleep. Set via control panel and the setting is remembered.

 

IMO, power manager in Windows 7 is good enough to replace Thinkpad Power Manager. The only function missing is gause reset

 

I don't see it as a suitable replacement. The power manager has its settings in much more usable format (more open with every setting not in a collapsed menu). There are a few more settings plus you pretty much need it for your battery maintenance (thresholds).

Not sure if this makes any difference with it saving settings properly or not but under advanced view, advanced settings, there is a setting for hybrid sleep.

 

Lenovo Power manager is great in battery management, but in power management, it hardly does better than Windows 7's one. I saw conflicts between them, and after some tries, I found that Power manager has some strange behaviors when managing power. At last, I decided to let Windows to manage power, and let Power to manager manage battery. A "hybrid" solution, and I'm happy with it.

 

Start > Hibernate ... that should work ...

 

Well I spoke too soon before...

Start -> hibernate works.

Close lid -> sleep but never hibernates (so battery goes flat). I just updated to the latest power manager 3.25, and some windows 7 patches and the behaviour remains. have confirmed in the windows control panel power applet that the system should go to hibernate after 15 mins when on batteries... but it doesnt. It sleeps after 10 mins as it should by my settings.. and stays in sleep mode.

I dont think I'm missing any obvious settings - I tried both with and without the hybrid sleep setting on.


If I just walk away and leave the screen open... it sleeps after 10 mins (as it should).. but doesnt drops down to hibernate.

I *can* set the action for "close lid" to hibernate and that works... but isnt what I wanted... I often close the lid during meetings and didnt want it to hibernate unless I put the laptop in the bag while it was asleep.

 

I use Sleep mode when closing the lid and I'm also disappointed with the battery's charge stamina or rather system efficiency. I can't recall how much charge is lost every hour, something like 1% - would anyone know?

 

when your laptop is sleeping, it still needs power to feed RAM, ODD,...etc. 1% charge lost every hour is normal, don't worry.

 

This is why I'd like it to drop to hibernate if left sleeping for an extended period. Perhaps when the x201s sleeps the idle counters are no longer checked so it never "knows" to hibernate?

With my previous thinkpad (X20) I could just close the lid and it would sleep... then if not reopened it would hibernate and preserve the battery. I expect the new x201s should behave the same but isnt for some reason.

 

Have you tried Windows 7's power manager? It works well with your requirements

 

The windows 7 power manager allows me to set the same timers.. but hibernate just doesnt trigger.

Under control panel -> power options -> Energy Star (selected) -> Change plan settings -> change advanced power settings -> sleep.... I am set for

Sleep...Sleep After...on battery... 5 mins
Sleep...Hibernate...on battery... 10 mins


after 5 mins it sleeps... and multiple hours later the laptop is still sleeping... never hibernate.

EDIT ** under AC power it works. just on batteries that it doesnt hibernate. so now I'm setting all my battery settings to the same as the AC settings to see if that makes a difference

EDIT2 ** Nope Under AC it behaves perfectly. Same settings on Batteries it sleeps after the set time but never drops to hibernate. Frustrating.

 

Ok my test...after 22 hours of being completely off, my battery lost 13% charge (from 100 to 87).

I'll try Sleep mode and compare the battery drain.

 

just to make sure, when you shut it down and start it up, do you use battery or AC adapter?

 

Yes that is correct - battery 100% and plugged in, shut down and it turns off, unplug AC......comeback after 22 hrs, plug in AC, startup.

I've got my threshold to start charging at 30.

 

Alright, so after 23 hours in Sleep mode, my battery drained from 87 to 65...a 22% loss.

In summary, approx battery drain (6-cell):
Sleep mode: 0.956% /hr = 4 days 8.5 hrs
Totally Off: 0.590% /hr = 7 days 1.5 hrs

Personally, i think the battery drain when the computer is completely off is a let down...would have thought it would have lasted much longer than just a week. I'm not away long enough from my X201 to test this, but hopefully someone can validate the real world results.