X220 suddenly idles at twice the wattage

Hello fellow owners of an X220 - or anyone with knowledge/advice!

Quite unexpectedly my X220 now draws 10+ Watts without any load. I updated Win7 and the graphics driver (Lenovo) recently, but that cannot explain it!? Suspecting CPU throttling, though never an issue before, I updated to the newest BIOS: unsuccessful.

Anyone any ideas? I would be really grateful.

 

1. Do you have Intel-only graphics or Optimus?

2. What does HWiNFO32 show for the CPU speed and power consumption (select Sensors for the latter).

John

 

The X220 only comes with Intel IGP.

800 MHz as it should, right?

 

Thanks. We have excluded the GPU. What wattage does HWiNFO32 say that the CPU is using when on idle? 4 to 5W would be reasonable. If more then something may be stopping the CPU going into the lower power sleep states (the Maximum Turbo option in the power settings might do this).

If you have USB 3.0, make sure nothing is connected to the port.

John

 

Have you used Task Manager to check whether any unnecessary background programs are using processor cycles?

 

See if you need to change your graphics power management settings. Maybe they reverted to Balanced or Max Performance on battery mode.

CPU throttling should decrease battery consumption, not increase it.

 

The CPU does draw approximately 5 Watts - seems like a lot considering the overall consumption at idle was at around 5 W.

Nothing connected.

0% at idle in Taskmanager, though I wouldn't know how to find info specifically about cycles.

Always had this at max.

 

For more details of what is using the CPU go to the Performance page in Task Manager and then press the Resource Monitor button.

And a further thought: If your original comments about power drain were based on the Lenovo Power Manager then do two checks: (i) when running on battery see what HWiNFO32 reports as the battery drain and (ii) see how quickly the battery runs down. If your computer is running at 10W then one hour of operation should reduce the battery charge by 10Whr. I can't think of a way to double-check the Power Manager reported power consumption when running on mains.

John

 

Wait how are you measuring it, through Power Manager? Commander Wolf's X220 tablet idles like ~5.5 watt with an SSD, read through Power Manager.

 

Thanks for that! I never knew...

PowerManager says approximately 10 W now instead of 5 W (or less), and that kinda agrees with HWiNFO32 (apprx 9).
Fact is, my battery is drained much quicker now. I get 3 to 4 hours with internet, office etc.

Someone else seems to have the same problem:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/579491-x220-battery-life-20.html#post7822712

 

Actually, all the numbers I was giving you (201 and 220 at least) were read from perfmon, not Power Manager. I've found that Power Manager's numbers generally match what I get from RMClock or perfmon, but I've found that Power Manager seems to eat a lot of CPU power when you open the window, so you have to let it settle down.

Ultimately, though, I believe everything reads from the same source (some counter in the battery), so there's no reason the numbers should be different.

 

Yeah, as he said, I too have the same issue ... i'v eleveled off, and I get about 7~ hours with a 9 cell...but that seems really low, especially when I WAS getting 11~ hours.

I could never narrow it down. I am half tempted to reformat though.

 

I would have reformated already, if it didn't imply all the hassle with software licenses. There isn't really any guarantee it won't happen again though.

 

exactly, licensing, installing, and the fact it cannot guarantee it will get better.

Even when I am idle @ 6-7WATT at about 90%~ battery, it shows 7-8 hours, not 10-11 like it used to. I wonder if my battery is the problem...

 

Yeah I'm having a similar problem with my 9-cell.

My battery life has dropped significantly and I can't explain why.

 

You can look in Power Manager and see how much wear your battery has.

 

BIOS 1.23 brought my battery life back to 10~ hours

huzzah

 

Re-formatting and re-installing Windows 7 would not resolve the issue. When I first bought my X220 I immediately removed the 7mm HDD and replaced it with an SSD, leaving the HDD untouched. When I noticed that my idle power consumption is around 9W, I swapped the original HDD in (i.e. the factory OS) and I still see 9W. I think it has more to do with the BIOS version.

 

Not for me. Lucky you!

 

I don't have solid evidence, but I am thinking bios 1.23 drains battery faster.

 

Just as a data point... my idle has stayed at 4.96-5.00w no matter what bios I'm on. My battery life has also not changed a bit. The only thing that changed my idle was going from Lenovo to Intel graphics drivers... that was only because of the screen brightness increase. After going back to Lenovo's, it drops back down. OP said he is using Lenovo's so that shouldn't be a problem.

Have you installed anything on your computer other than graphics drivers? A slight increase I can understand, but doubling is odd. What were the windows updates?

 

While this topic is fairly old now and does not seem to apply to a lot of owners of X220-type machines, for those who are interested/affected:

For me there is a new development. For a long while my X220 used 10 Watts on battery, for no obvious reason. Now, for some reason, my laptop sometimes draws 5 Watts after charging and then unplugging, and sometimes 10 Watts.

As soon as I find some time over the holidays I will set up the OS anew. While I have no hope this is going to fix anything, it seems the only thing I can do.

 

When you do a clean install, make sure you use the Lenovo System Update software to pull-down the drivers--I noticed in this way, all the sequence of installing drivers is maintained; if you do a self driver installation, you may get the sequence wrong and then you are back to square one. I had similar problem with x200 model--like a bright spark I thought I could do my own driver install; TP are tricky buggers, they need special attention; and System Update does this for the TP.

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

VirtualCloneDrive - added 2W to my system
this, I think, was keeping the CPU from going to its deeper sleep state, which is how those low wattages are reached
skype - closing it drops the wattage
second hdd in ultrabay - dismounting it drops the wattage

also:
Logitech Mouse Dongle - added 2W

 

The machine should idle at about 4.95 - 5.5 watts, at medium brightness.