Battery Drained when Laptop is off!

I have the SZ34 and it really is a fantastic laptop overall except a few things.

1. The tingle feeling is pretty crappy but it depends on the power outlet, some are ok some make it worse.

2. I cant leave the battery in! If I turn the Laptop off for the night and leave the battery in it, by the time I turn it on the next morning 10-20% has been drained!! If I go away for a weekend and come back and turn it on, almost 50% is gone!! Is this limited to a certain batch or is this affecting everyone?

Thanks for the help!

 

thats normal. check back posts. it'll vary from laptop to laptop on how much is drained. Mine was like yours with my sz120 with my sz160 its more like 3-5% overnight. Weekend of none use will be in the 80's%

 

I'm assuming this, but it may be because of the intricate circuits and components in a notebook, that some electron spillage will occur here and there. Remember, just because its off, doesn't necessary mean that its not using energy just being connect to circuits. This is just my own sort of thoery. May not be right.

 

As an aside, I had an FJ270/b that you could audibly hear doing electronic things after it was shutoff ---- the only way you could make it 100% quiet after shutdown was to remove the battery. I'd call that an 'extreme' case.

 

Its just really annoying as Dell's dont do this at all, so why does Sony? No other manufacturer does this that Ive had.

 

Not if the laptop is off... the only thing that should still be running is the RTC, and this is being taken care of by the battery.

JY

 

The RTC probably is the only thing that it on, however, the battery is still connected to the ciruits in the computer. Remember, a battery discharges when connected to nothing. It will discharge very slowly, but it still discharges. So imagine that same principal, but with lots more circuits. I do understand what you are saying though. The RTC is the only device that is properly active in terms of energy usage.

 

I also feel the tingle

You know the cable between wall outlet and power brick. Try flip the cable around, I notice the tingle went away.

I don't know it its a psychological thing or something ..

 

A Lithium-Ion battery will discharge by itself, but this will take several months. It can not explain why a Vaio would loose 20% overnight.

it's a design fault. No other laptop would do that

 

I don't think it can be narrowed down to a design fault all that quickly. Over the night, i have lost 10% of my battery, when it was off. It may, however, that Sony's do this more than other manufacturers.

It may be that a battery takes months to discharge, but when its plugged into a notebook, its connected to a darn long circuit. I can't guess how long, but it may be a mile, or maybe a few metres. The chemical reaction within the battery is still happening, and electrical discharge is still occuring. So, electrons are still being pushed out of the battery. So, if an isolation switch, is not present on the battery, then this will continue to be the case.

 

I think it's a design fault because my old crappy Acer didn't do it. My flatmates's Acer and Samsung don't do it either. However, my SZ110 (well, SZ1M/B, but that's just the European name for it) does the same.
I actually had my battery exchanged (without any issues, I might add) because it was such a strain on the battery. But still, leaving it off overnight with the battery in the notebook will take away about 15% in my case.
The weird thing was that this wasn't always the case. It started around a month or so ago.
I asked another guy who has an SZ with LED screen, he has the same problem, so I assume it's a design flaw that affects every unit.

 

What kind of explanation is this ???

Yeah sure... actually, it's because the electrons are being stored in the "wire" rather than in the battery cause the "wire" is soooooo long ...

Sounds like me mum trying to understand how a TV works !

 

Sorry if i didn't make myself clear. I know that electrons are stored in the wire, how else would it conduct, but i meant that the battery is still "pushing" these free electrons through the circuit.

If the battery is totally disconnected from the circuit, then at least the drain on the battery is reduced, that way a lesser percentage of the batteries overall energy is lost.

 

Welcome to the club. That is my number one complaint (of the very few) about this notebook.

 

I was being extermely sarcastic...
A battery doesn't *push* electrons through the wire and that's why it discharges....

 

Have any of you guys tested to see if this battery issue can be solved by disabling the advanced power management functions, such as wake-up on LAN or wake-up on PCI events? I know for sure that this keeps draining power from the battery, for the computer maintains much of the hardware in "listening" mode.

 

Yeah, I had those disabled.
But I just tested something: I recharged my notebook around a week ago and turned it on today. It turns out I still have ~50%. Apparently, this is getting a lot worse when your battery grows older (as I mentioned, I had Sony replace it recently), and by "older" I mean roughly 5 months. So I guess I'll just put the battery in my laptop when I actually use it, that should reduce the strain a bit.

 

Its a known issue people. While Lith-ion battery does drain on its own. Its a problem with most Sony notebooks to some degree. Its something that Sony is doing with the laptop while its off.
I've had many notebooks. Only Sony's and my very first Toshiba (4 years ago) had this problem.
Same thing with the tingle on the units. Sony knows aobut this, but has no plans to fix it as of yet. People have found out that if you switch power supply to a 3 prong wall connector it has no tingle. This was in another post.

 

Fortunately, my other notebooks don't have this "issue,"

 

As I mentioned, Sonyand a very old Toshiba had this problem and no other that I'm aware of has this problem as bad as the Sony.


QUOTE my whole paragraph:
Its a known issue people. While Lith-ion battery does drain on its own. Its a problem with most Sony notebooks to some degree. Its something that Sony is doing with the laptop while its off.

 

whats this tingle youre all talking about? its probably on the other threads, but i dont want to search through them all.

 

The just of it is that the unit isn't properly grounded with jsut a two prong power plug. You get this static numbness when you run your finger over the palm rest area with the unit plugged in.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=45008


Pictures from that topic

 

I have the same problem on a Tohiba Satellite A105-S4094. One question though... They say it's recommended to charge your battery only when it's completely discharged. And most of the time I'm using my laptop at home, so I use it plugged in. After the night I have only about 90% of my battery charged. Is it ok to plug it in when I wake up in the morning or I have to use it running on the battery for about 3 hours and then plug it in?
Thank you.

 

'They' are wrong. Lion batteries should be fully discharged infrequently (and only then to keep your battery gauge accurate). This is a legacy of NiCads which suffered if not discharged every time, many people think this applies to any and all rechargeable cells but it does not.

Lithium-Ion batteries should also not be stored fully charged (or in hot places) because it reduces the life of the battery - leave it with a partial charge overnight and finish it off while you are having your breakfast.

http://www.batteryuniversity.com/parttwo-34.htm

 

Would this solve the tingling problem? http://www.techexcess.net/2-prong-male-to-3-prong-female-adapter-ws-133.aspx

 

No, since this would not earth the laptop.

 

what is it for then, for cosmetic reasons only?

 

Only new power supply with 3 pong.

 

It looks like it is to allow you to use the same lead with devices which use three-pin and two-pin power. I am in the UK, so I have three-pin. If your sockets are difficult to get to this could be useful but it seems it would be made redundant by a decent multi-socket.

I do not know what the two-pin vaio AC adaptor looks like but even if that adaptor allows you to plug the brick into a three-pin socket (which it probably does assuming the two-pin bit is the right shape, but you would still need the wire that goes from three-pin wall socket to the adapter) think about where the wire from that third pin goes - it terminates at the 3 to 2 adapter (on account of it being a 3 to 2, there is nowhere to put the third (earth) lead)

 

Ok well this is interesting to note. I have installed a fresh copy of Vista RTM and now I dont have the battery draining issue! Very very strange!

But at least I'm happy I can leave the battery in the laptop now lol.

 

I have a new sz430n and went looking through these threads because I'm experiencing the same thing. THIS is driving me crazy as I can turn off the sz and turn it back on after a few hours and the battery has drained to 80%!
The laptop has been upgraded to Vista Ultimate from Vista Business. Even tweaked the VAIO power profiles but battery seems to drain pretty fast while just browsing the web.

I found an APC brand (non-OEM) 7200mAh battery ($140) at Fry's that says it works in the SZ but the laptop doesn't even want to start with this battery in (meaning it does not even POST - no vaio splash screen/bios)

Would it be possible I have a defect in either the system or the battery?

OR (and here's a little conspiracy theory for you) - is there a system built into these laptops to verify battery is SONY ONLY at the hardware level that may be inadvertently causing any battery connected to the laptop to discharge faster than normal?

Of all the HP, Compaq, Dell, IBM laptops that I've seen and used through the years have had this problem, BTW.