New Vaio - Battery Keeps Losing Power When the PC Is Shut Off

I bought a VGN-SZ300 Vaio notebook from newegg about a month ago. It's just for word processing. I love the wonderful 13.3" widescreen LCD and the look of my Vaio.

Here's the problem. The battery loses power even when the notebook is **shut off**. It loses about 15% of power every 24 hours. Let's say I fully charge the battery, turn it off, take the AC cord out, and leave the notebook. In 5 days, the battery will reach almost 0% power.

So, I discussed this issue with a Sony tech. He thought the battery was faulty and sent a replacement. The replacement battery does the same thing!

It seems that my Vaio drains power from the battery even when it's completely shut off. When I took out the battery and left it for days, it did NOT lose power. Do I have a lemon Vaio? What might cause this strange problem?

 

You are sure that the unit is shut down completely and not sleeping, stand-by or hibernating? Are you using window's power options properties or Sony's power management to manage your power options?

 

I'm using Sony's power management. I'm sure the unit is shut down completely. That is, I simply click "Turn Off." After the XP shuts down the unit, I close the lid.

I'm not a newbie when it comes to laptops. I've owned many laptops and currently own 2 Thinkpads and a Satellite. I had never had or seen or heard this kind of weird battery issue before buying this Vaio.

 

My Fujitsu was like that...fully charged battery died in 4 days..even shut down. so I thought it was the battery...but it wasn't
my new battery was same...

 

I have a SZ3xp/c and i have exactly the same problem, i fully charge the battery and next day it looses about 10-15%, i tried taking out the battery from the laptop and it didn't loose charge.
im very desperated with this because i don't know why this happens.
I make sure that i completely turned off the laptop.

it has to be the laptop!

 

I had the same problem with sz460. But now the problem is gone. I did only two things that could solve this problem:
a) I updated the VAIO Power Manager (from the esupport site)
b) I removed ISB... process (do not remember its complete name, but you should understand what I am talking about ).

Regards,
Oleg

 

I'm not alone! I will first update software and see what happens.

 

I'm still not convinced that the computer is shutting down instead of sleeping. Try using the Windows menu options Start->Shut Down->Shut Down.

 

Start --> Turn Off Computer --> Turn Off. That's how I turn off PCs running the XP and that should shut down my Vaio...unless Sony did something to the OEM XP copy.

 

I thought it was Start > Shut Down. Turn off Computer?

 

On my XP SP2 machines (including the Vaio), it's Start --> Turn Off Computer --> Turn Off

 

There are two variants of the shutdown sequence in XP. One is Start > Shut down > and then a dialog box with a drop down box with options for logoff, shutdown, restart and standby. (I believe this is the one you get if the machine is attached to a Domain.)

The other is Start > Turn Off computer > followed by three graphic buttons Standby, Turn Off and Restart. (The standby one changes to hibernate if you hold down the shift key.)

Gary

 

so has anyone who has this problem tried uninstalling the battery checker? has that fixed your problem? i don't think i had this problem on my sz440 before, but in order to get my hotkeys working i installed the battery checker (the isb whatever utility) along with a few other utilities and i'm concerned that my battery will start to drain...

 

I killed the isbmgr.exe process before turning off the computer last night and noticed that I didn't get the battery drop I normally get when the notebook is left unplugged overnight. The volume up and down hotkeys no longer work though. THe bright/dim ones do.

 

This issue has been raised before: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=20440

 

i have the original battery in my sz3 and i completely uninstalled the Vaio power management but it continues loosing battery, approximately 10% during each night.

i don't know what can i do
Coult it be a problem of the battery?

 

Hey, what happens with the Vaio if you disconnect the battery for several hours? Does it mis-behave in any way? Asks to set up date and time?
The main battery drain could occur if the CMOS / BIOS battery is having problems...

I am also very shocked to hear that ISB manager could influence the battery longevity while Windows is shut down... and thereby the process is not active. How is that possible?

Hope you find a solution... Please post it here if you do.

Best of luck

Nickolai

 

Same problem here with Vaio FZ.

Anyone find the solution to the problem?

 

The problem is caused by battery charger circuit on motherboard. There may be a short circuit that causes battery drains its power. It's definitely motherboard problem. I had this problem before with my X505. When I checked battery circuit, there was a diode got short which caused battery lose its power.

 

I believe I was losing about 6% per 12 hours... but I think I was booting up on battery power all those times. Not sure.

What is an acceptable amount of discharge over a 12 hour period (%)?

How much (%) is supposed used during bootup?

I ran a quick experiment overnight last night as follows:
Charged battery to 100%, killed ISBMGR.exe process, turned off VAIO, unplugged AC. 12 hours later: Plugged in AC, booted VAIO. Result: 100% charge.

I will do this again for 24 hours, again with killing the ISBMGR.exe process before shutdown. Then I will try it without killing ISBMGR.exe process.

 

I have same issue with my FZ... my old Toshiba Portege doesn't have that issue.

 

klas - You should run some experiments on your machine too. So far, I have been able to hold full charge over 12 hours by doing what I stated above.

I am actually going to try for 24 hours this time, and will post results tomorrow. If ISBMGR.exe is indeed the culprit, I will write a HOTKEY that will allow us to turn off ISBMGR.exe before shutting down (will just take a double mouse click).

 

Self-discharge rate: 5%-10%/month for Li-ion batteries. so 6% is way over that in 12 hours haha

Booting up on battery would probably knock the battery down to mid-90s.

For me, I only see the drop in battery-level after I boot up, and then unplug the AC power. Then I see my readings are off, like it drops quickly within several minutes.

 

Thanks for the info, Vietboi821.

I have just done the following experiment:
Experiment 2: Charged battery to 100%, killed ISBMGR.exe process, turned off VAIO, unplugged AC. 22 hours later: Plugged in AC, booted VAIO. Result: 100% charge!

Now I will do it again for 22-24 hours, BUT leave the ISBMGR.exe ALIVE before shutting down.

This is awesome!

 

OK, this is a problem with, dare I say, ALL Sony notebooks. If I go back three years ago to when I had my FZ, it too drained with it being off. I HATED my Sony for that. Because if I didn't remember to charge it every other day, if I took the laptop on a trip and its been sitting OFF, my battery would be around 70%. If killing the isbmgr.exe works, let me know. What exactly does it control again?

 

This just dawned on me. How is removing this program from starting up supposd to help battery life? I mean I understand in windows. Its a program that is run. But the laptop is off, it doesn't run that program...See were I'm getting at?

 

The main purpose of ISBMGR.exe process is to check if the battery is a Sony product and therefore prevent non-Sony batteries to be used. Killing it let u use a non-Sony battery but do not let u charge it unless you uninstall/reinstall AC adaptater and battery drivers in windows.

But this process could also control some other settings such as charging speed (the so-called Vaio optimized charging for example) and/or battery use profiles.

Hence, if killing this process (the simpliest way is to remove it from autostartup processes thru msconfig) fixes the "Losing Power When the PC Is Shut Off" syndrom, that would mean that when it's running this process is messing with charging/discharging profiles. This borked profile would be retained in the battery memory.

The weird thing is that when you shut down windows and the process is terminated seems to behave differently as killing the process before shutting down windows. That would mean that the termination of this process when shutting down windows isn't properly done. Windows and/or the process itself could be process the culprit.

Anyway if killing the process does really fix this issue, let's hope an update will be released for ppl that doesn't know about this forum.

 

Okay guys I just completed Experiment #3, and there seems to be no difference...
Experiment 3: Charged battery to 100%, kept ISBMGR.exe process alive, turned off VAIO, unplugged AC. 26 hours later: Plugged in AC, booted VAIO. Result: 99% charge, then 100% after about 20 seconds.

I could have sworn my VAIO was losing charge overnight when shut off, but perhaps I was being mislead because I didn't realize that a bootup via battery power eats up 5% or more. Sorry for any inconveniences. Perhaps those of you who think your VAIO is losing charge should make sure you are booting on AC power?

 

Nope it drains. In two days, I can power it up to 83% or less. In two days, in hybernation (Thats the one where it saves the snapshot to disk and shuts down) it would wake up to 78% or less. And its not suposed to drain that fast. I've owned Dells and Asus and Apples. None drain like Sonys. Example:Asus g1s I can charge to 100% in two days after powerup, it would be at 98%-97%.

 

i don't need to test anything I know for a fact that my new FZ290 has been always loosing power on standby faster then my ancient Toshiba R400 with 3 year old battery.

 

If you are using Vista, please note that Hibernation and Shutdown do not result in the same ACPI System States.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms798270.aspx


Hibernate in Vista results in S4. Shutdown results in S5. Looking in the Device Manager on a SZ680, not all components are completely turned off with S4. Some stay awake.

The fact that people have gotten inconsistent results on the same systems tells me it's a software issue.

Another post suggests this: Shutdown or hibernate, unplug your AC adapter, then remove your battery for 30 seconds. Plug your battery back in and leave the computer sit for 24 hours. What will your battery level say?

I've done this two nights in a row, leaving the computer off for roughly 18-20 hours, and in both cases resulted in a battery life of 99-100%.

I think whats key is leaving the battery out long enough for the system to reset itself. I think this because unplugging the battery then immediately plugging it back in gave me inconsistent results. The 30 second rule has given me two results of 99-100%. What will the third night bring me?

 

I'm doing shutdown and I get down to middle 85% after not using a fully charged laptop. The hibernation is below that wich correspond to what you are saying about power still being used. Still doesnt explain the 15+% battery drop when my other notebooks are fine. This TZ has the same problem my old SZ had. Too bad too, I liked that old SZ but hated how if I didn't have the battery topped off it would drain. I had 1 ext battery and 2x normal battery when I had that one.

When I had my old SZ Sony noteook, I did the remove the battery test. No drain. There really is something always draining in a Sony notebook. And that older sony notebook had XP.

 

Did you bother to read what system state 4 actually is???

Gary

 

Gary,

S4 and S5 are power states, meaning the computer can map whatever device states it likes to those power states. To be meet ACPI standards, S4 and S5 should result in all hardware going into D3, fully off. However, it seems the SZ does not do this. If you look in the device manager for an SZ, you'll see some devices enter D2 at the S4 state. D2 means the device will still receive power - it needs to go to D3 to be fully off. Only S5 on the SZ results in all devices going to D3.

 

Where are you looking in device manger to determine which devices enter what state when the system is in S4?

Gary

 

I don't have my SZ with me right now, but when you click on a device in the device manager, look under the 'Details' tab. Look in the drop-down box on that tab. There should be 'Power State', "Power State Mappings', I forget tha actual name of it. That shows what device state is mapped to what power state.

You should see something like:
S0--->D0
S1--->Unspecified
S2--->Unspecified
S3--->D2
S4--->D3
S5--->D3

 

Found it! Great. Thanks and rep to you!

Gary

 

for the TZ, could this power drain have anything to do with AV mode (booting without the OS for dvd/cd playback)? would there be any way to check if certain hardware was left 'on'?

 

I think it's a separate issue. But yeah - AV Mode does drain the battery faster than Windows does (watching the same media). It's mentioned on Sony's site in very small print somewhere. Bit counter-intuitive, but there you go...

 

Update:

Did 48 hour test, leaving ISBMgr alive, and battery was 93% at bootup The AV mode draining the battery? I was suspecting this all along.

I have been doing shutdown and not hibernate (Vista).

Let's keep posting till we find a solution!

 

Well, after multiple days of testing it seems that doing the following:

-Shutdown, remove and reinsert battery with wireless turned off

or

-Kill ISBMGR, shutdown, remove and reinsert battery with wireless turned off

Still results in 3-4% loss per day for me. Anyone have alternative ideas or methods?

 

Please don't be offended by this question... Are you booting with AC power or battery?

 

Ok, Here's what I'm trying next:

In vista, set both the power button and lid to "do nothing". So, when I close the lid it will do nothing. When I push the power button, it will do nothing. Let's see how this goes with the shutdown process.

With the power button set to do nothing, I now realize why the battery LED indicator always flashes when I first turn on the computer. Pressing the power button causes the battery LED to flash. Odd...

 

Here's my process:
Shutdown with AC. Unplug AC. Leave off for 18-24 hours. Plug in AC. Turn on computer.

 

the power loss was about %10-15 for me, when i kept my laptop off (totally of that is) for a day. in a week or so battery doesnt have enough power to boot the laptop on battery. i am guessing either you cant really shut down your sony laptop totally, or sony batteries are somewhat very-low-quality which cant keep charge.

 

No, most Sony batteries are of high quality and use lithium ion cells from Japan. If I remove and leave my battery out I lose no charge.

 

it might be that a batch of batteries were like that... i dont know, mine was an FZ290

 

Another data point:

Kept ISBMgr.exe alive and shut down for 4 days. Result - 88% charge at boot. Will run a series of tests with ISBMgr terminated.

 

Please do report back when you have results. I, too, am losing significant charge when in hibernate, standby, shut down, etc. Very strange as my Dell XPS M1330 hasn't lost any charge over the last 2 days it's been shutdown. I love the SZ7 and prefer it to the M1330, but these little quirks which are "unique" to Sony are quite frustrating.

 

Ok, making the lid and power button do nothing in Vista still results in about 3% per day. I also tried disabling everything I could in the device manager that stays in D2 (still on) power state during hibernation (S4). Still 3% loss.

Next I'm going to unplug before shutting down, and shutdown by pressing power button instead of Start--->Shutdown.

I don't understand why manufacturers think this is OK. Some HP notebooks suffer from this power drain problem as well. HP responded by saying take the battery out, it is not meant to be off long-term with the battery attached.