The official VAIO Z battery drain thread

no !! they have this problem too

 

my laptop is FW 139e and it have the same problem.

 

I have contacted sony e-support. Thay made me run several battery life tests. And sfter 7 ticket updates the finally gave me the answer:

===================================================
The unit will discharge the fully charged battery when left in the unit. The connectors on the battery and computer are connected causing an open circuit. This lets the charge of the battery leak out for safety.
===================================================

which is quite funny LOL. People, please contacct sony support too

Do they really think we are so stupid?

I can post the whole conversation is some is interested

Well... support sucks. Any ideas how to contact sony with technical report directly (not via stupid support guys)

 

Unbelievable! LOL but the guy may have some 'validity' cause when you charge battery 100% THAN take it out and leave it over night, put it back in AM, the % is 99-100 so maybe the open circuit theory has SOME theoretical purpose? Lol

 

Sure there is some circuit )) I knew that before. No circuit=no drain. The funny thing - is that they drain our precious power "for safety".

Well sony! I'm not safe - I gonna be killed once I take my laptop with drained battery and can't get online to do some urgent work

Better yet - sony could ship Z's without battery at all. 100% safety...

 

An OPEN CIRCUIT leads to battery drain ? LOL.

 

same dranying problem on my brand new Z555N

 

How exactly are they helping keep our Z safe from a 100% charged battery vs 90% - the leaked power after all goes INTO the Z right?

 

Funny yes . I'm quite sure there is some circuit, but definetely not open.
I want to contact sony techs, not talkers, but still don't know how.

I'm starting to believe, that real developers at sony do not know about the issue.

 

Well, having worked at Panasonic (and if Sony is anything like Panny) for a while, even if the US based engineers know about or want to fix this, the final decision will rest with our Nihonjin overlords IN Japan.

 

i rather they said i dunno, than such stupid excuse.
fool

 

so is this actually a defective problem? would it be a valid reason for a return at a store do you guys think?

 

Any update on this guys???

 

I think is it a good reason for return. If we cannot make support work - let Sony get it's **** back. Maybe Z2 or Z3 will be better.

 

I started this thread, and you should read back to my last posts several pages ago. I no longer have any issue with this. It is acceptable to me. The battery drain is simply slightly excessive startup and shutdown drain while on battery. Other than that, mine is not draining when shutdown, again, only more use than normal during Windows startup and shutdown. Read back. This conversation has carried on long after I claimed that it was resolved!!!

 

Agreed. I left it off for 24 hours and it drained the exact same amount as leaving it off for 8 hours.

 

I loose aarnd 7-8% on my Z how ever long i leave it .Could this be fixed with future updates or in the newer refreshes or by bios updates or anything which doesn't involve returning the Z

 

YOU WILL LOSE 7-8% IF YOU SIMPLY STARTUP AND SHUTDOWN THE Z !!!
Other than that, these should be no loss. Time has nothing to do with the loss, just the startup and shutdown!!!

 

Aamsel... you seem to be a little annoyed that people are still discussing their perceived problem in 'your' thread. But I think that's OK. Just because you're satisfied that there isn't a problem (as am I), it doesn't mean people can't discuss it, surely?

It's unfortunate that starting up and shutting down seem to eat so much battery, but I think we'll have to live with it. I don't think it's quite as bad as 7-8% with XP, by the way... but I'm not bothered about it enough to test it properly either.

 

It is just amazing to me that people will see a thread titled "VAIO Z battery drain problem" and start posting to it, without reading any of the thread history!!!

But then, all I need to do is unsubscribe from it.

 

I'm loosing rougly ~6% after one day (battery full). 2nd day it consume rougly 25%.

 

Lol

so all this time i had it figured already
just read the 1st post on this thread

 

That's not true. Do this quick test:

- Charge it to 100% in vista.
- Then unplug and restart quickly. (why wait 8 hours if Startup/Shutdown is the battery-eater)
- See the battery level once it boots up.

You'll be surprized.

System Startup does not eat 6-7%. At least for my Z. Something is eating the battery while Z is shut down.

 

That is ridiculous, and DOES NOT MAKE SENSE

simply starting up or shutting down the laptop WON'T need 8% of battery life

 

I tried the 100% restart thing and i didnt loose anything it stayed there like it was the only time i loose power is when the Z is powered off and left aside for a long time like say 8hrs

Is this a hardware problem that would requires some attention in the future or smthing wrong with the bios.
My TZ never had this issue

 

Hello All

I'm new to this forum so forgive me if I cover already discussed ground. I didn't go back to the begining and read all of the posts and answers.

I have been trying to get an answer to this issue for months, ever since I bought a new SZ-780U (Vista Ultimate) and noticed battery drain while shut down. I also have a 2 year old SZ-280P (XP Pro) that I absoutly love and has no such problem.

Sony (telephone) tech services denies that any such problem exists and suggests the usual.....check shut down state, original Bios install, etc. I've been to Vaio Club uk and see similar posts there but can't participate as a "non-european".

 

I charged the battery 100%, shut down the Z on Monday October 6th 9:30 AM, unplugged it and left it till Sunday October 12th 11:45 AM, I plugged it in then booted it up...

Result: Battery level was 48%!

There was no battery drain during startup because I plugged it in before boot up!

I used the battery care function (50%)and the LED which indicates the battery charging did not illuminate when plugging it in before boot up.
That was was wired because the battery should charge when battery is under 50%. Since 48% is certainly less than 50% it was supposed to charge it...
Setting battery care back full charge started the charging process and took the usual amount of time to charge to 100%.

 

It is obvious that there is a problem with battery power drain in SZ's and apparently in AR's from all that I've read. Sony is in denial and we keep fumbling around in the dark looking for answers.

As I indicated in my previous reply, I went to Vaio Club uk this morning and found the following suggestion:

It shouldn't drain the battery unless something gets turned on!
Are you sure the Vaio is completely switched off and not set to Standby or Hibernate. The default in Vista is Sleep which is just a standby state useful if you want to power down for a few hours only - change this to Shut Down.
Check in Device Manager that both your LAN and WLAN cannot wake the Vaio. Look in Power Management and uncheck the box "Allow this device to bring the computer out of standby".
Check in the BIOS that 'Wake on Lan' is not enabled.

I would have liked to have gotten a little more information, but couldn't sign in.....even as a guest, from this country. Obviously the first part we know, and I am going to try the second (Power Management and BIOS) tonight to see if there is any validity.

 

Even when in hibernation the battery shouldn't be draining cause the laptop should be completely powered down

 

I think Sony needs massive returns to start to beleive in obvious things. Maybe we can issue an appeal to sony? How many of us have can confirm they have battery loss during shutdown?

There must be a way to reach Sony.

 

well there was a sony employee on this forum like last week and asked about the battery drain problem but he disappeared after that..

 

Big difference between Hibernate mode and Sleep mode.
In sleep mode power to the CPU and RAM is maintained.
Sleep is the default mode in Vista for the "Power Down" button on the start menu...

 

Yeah I know
I changed it to "Hibernate"

 

Has anyone tried to kill the Sony battery care process is....exe ?
I think it was mentioned some time ago in a thread

 

When you shut down the notebook the process is killed because the RAM is not powered so NO process can be running...

I have the drain issue with XP too!

This is not a software issue!!!

When the NB is off there should not be any power drawn!

 

I made a similar post in the SR thread.

Hi,

I have been experiencing this problem in Sony Vaio VGN-CR 23. Though I have not yet attempted to quantify the problem, I often get a completly drained out system when I hibernate it and switch on after a few days.

I suspect two reasons:

1. Sony has a facility by which I can use the DVD player and media buttons on the laptop to play files without booting into Vista. Obviously, this means that some amout of power is used to operate the drive and detect the pressing of buttons even when Vista is switched off. Maybe this is what's draining the battery power.

2. Sony has an illumination LED light at the bottom of the laptop. I have seen this light burn when the PC is being charged even if it is switched off. Maybe this too is drawing power from the battery.

Any owners of CR series having this problem?

 

Every laptop I've ever owned has had some sort of LED to indicate charging is in progress. Some models change the colour of the LED when the battery is full and others switch off the LED when the battery is full... but they all have some sort of illuminated 'charging in progress' indicator. The LED shouldn't light if the laptop is switched off and no charging is happening. So I don't think we can blame this LED for any strange draining of the battery.

 

Just to clarify, this isn't the regular charge indicator. This is a special multi-color LED display system that can change colors when music is played (much like Winamp Visualization) and can change "moods", according to Sony. Its supposed to be one of the selling points of the CR series.

 

This is the battery drain thread for the Z series laptops
NOT the CR series...

 

so what the heck! I thought we solved this problem!

 

No... can't you read quite a few people are still having this problem??.........

 

I think the problem is yours that you didn't read from page 1 like I did a 3 weeks ago

 

the problem is that you didn't read the last page, and see how many people are still having about battery drain problem

one person found a "so call" solution, doesnt mean it will work on other people, if it does, nobody would be having the problem right now

 

Kindly read this post also: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4036957&postcount=173

I read all posts here carefully. And I'm 100% sure the problem is NOT solved.

If you think, we've missed something and it is actuaaly solved - point me to the particular posi I missed.

 

the link to the magazine (PhilFlow selling thread) confirms a off current of 0,4W (~16%/24h).

 

I read Phil selling thread and couldn't find any link, could you point that out for me?

reboot does NOT have the same power consumption of a power on.

 

http://www.notebookjournal.de/tests/inspection/638

 

ok thanks! I saw that but I don't speak german

 

I'm almost ready to create DIY switch on a battery, that will just disconnect the ground from laptop to prevent the leak.

 

I enabled battery care funtion on my Z to charge untill 50%. I shut down last night, open it again and the battery was at 33%...Ok, we understood that there is a battery drain, but sooo much?