Vaio Z Battery Drain Diagnostics Thread

I am starting this thread in hopes of getting to the root cause of the battery drain found in the VAIO Z-series (among other lines I've been told).

Battery drain here is defined as the amount of battery the laptop loses when turned completely off and left to sit for a period of time. If the battery is removed, the loss is insignificant: 1-2% in a week's time. If the battery is left in, the loss is significant: 5-10% in a 24 hour period.

I am here to try and determine what causes this loss. What I would like those who wish to participate to do is the following:
1. Charge your laptop to 100% (battery care must be disabled to do so).
2. WHILE THE LAPTOP IS PLUGGED IN, shut the laptop down completely (no sleep/hibernate/low power state, in other words, OFF)
3. Let the laptop sit unused for at least 24 hours
4. Just prior to starting back up, PLUG THE LAPTOP BACK IN, start it up and record your battery %
5. Post your battery loss here as well as your laptop's configuration

Keeping the laptop plugged in on shut down and start up removes the possibility of a large amount of juice being used for either process which has been documented to happen.

My hope is that we find some people who do not experience drain and some others who do. With the configurations listed, perhaps we can narrow down the possible causes.

My results: 8% loss after 24 hours.
Z-590 CTO
P9500 CPU
4GB RAM
BLU-RAY drive
5400rpm 320GB hard drive
Battery care disabled
Left in Stamina mode
Wireless switch on front left on

Please only post if you wish to help in this effort in order to keep this thread clean, thanks!

 

There is already a thread that has gone over this issue in a lot of detail.

Gary

 

Looks like we have the same exact configuration, jtsarnak. I could test this with a large capacity battery. Also, it may be helpful to post BIOS version and operating system. I'm running VISTA Ultimate x64, etc.

 

I have Vista Ultimate 32 bit. Where can I find the BIOS version as it looks like it is locked down pretty hard. What kind of battery loss are you seeing?

 

If it's the thread I am thinking of, I have read it. However, that thread failed in trying to determine the source of the problem. In fact, the starter of that thread gave up and chalked up the loss to usage on start up and shut down, which exists, but is NOT the sole source of the loss. Thanks though.

 

These instructions can't be followed. How can one plug the laptop back in when it's still plugged in from the previous instructions?

 

it must be a step between 2 and 3 to unplug ur laptop !!

 

2A.Take the power cord off (Ac)

 

I will do this as soon as I find a time available where I don't need to use my laptop for a full day.

 

And what if there is no one that does not experience the battery drain? I haven't come across such an active person yet (rather than random posts saying they *might* not have the problem then never posting again on the topic when questioned.)

What's plan B.

 

Everyone's a wise guy. Yes, unplug the laptop after it is shut down and before you let it sit for 24 hours.

 

Well I was in a position to try this with mine, so here are my results.

My results: 5% loss after 25 hours to be exact.
Z-540 NCB
P8400 CPU
4GB RAM
Standard DVD drive
5400rpm 250GB hard drive
Battery care disabled
Left in Stamina mode
Wireless switch on front left on
Vista Business (32 bit)

 

well, im not borthered to take off the battery or use standby ... becoz i know, no one can fix it .... a big thread had been failed be4. But im really hope u guys can do it, good luck everyone

 

Here is what I did. Laptop is shut off.

-Battery is inside,
-Stamina mode before shut down.
-Nothing connected (USB, Lan, AC, etc).
-Left for 19 hours untouched.

-After waiting, I took the battery out of the laptop.
-Placed AC in
-Turned on computer
-Wait to load completely to Windows.
-Place battery back in (with AC still connected of course).
-Quickly unplugged the AC.
-100% charge.

 

@ Qeuqeu, so you have never witnessed any battery drain?

 

No, not really. The max that I have lost was 1-3% and I assume it is due to bootup power. I have never really experienced this 8-10% loss in less than 24 hrs that people have been describing here.

 

The longest I had my laptop off (that i remember) was 3 days and had a full charge. After turning it on, I still had 98% left. Hope this helps.

 

if u want to see the the battery drain u have to turn on ur laptop while it unplugged and check if it still 100 % or less ??

 

If you turn it on while it is unplugged the level will ALWAYS be less than 100% once booted up, as there will be some energy consumed by the boot process.

Gary

 

it will be 98 or even 97 % it's normal !! but in sony it will be 90 and may be 89 % and u can try it

 

My Vaio Z550 is brand new as of last week. I experienced battery drain immediately after I left my 100% charged battery in my Z overnight. When I turned on my Z the next day after about 12 hours - the battery meter read 91%.

However, following the advice of someone in the main Z owner thread, I decided to try recharging the battery to a full 100% - and then removing the battery from the laptop overnight.

I was away for the weekend and came back today - I decided to power on the Z *without* the battery in it (so it's just plugged in) - and then I put in my battery (that was 100% fully charged as of 3 days ago), took out the plug, and voila - the battery meter reads 100%.

So it looks like I've gotta keep my battery out of my Z when I travel with it. :-/ That's annoying..

 

has anyone else tried this.

also, i'd like to hear what happens when you leave the battery in while turning it on as mentioned right after your post. if it doesn't stay at around 99%, what you're doing right now may be an error in the reading.

 

If you wouldn't mind following the steps I listed above and seeing if you get drain, that would be a big help. Also, please post your laptop's configuration because if you truly don't have drain, I want to see what we don't have in common.

 

One likely source for the battery drain is WOL. The NIC and WiFi cards on these machines have the ability to wake the machine up from not only sleep, but also hibernation when a "magic" packet is received. For that to work, the cards still have to be powered.

For all devices that support it in the device manager, check "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" and uncheck "Allow this device to bring the computer out of standby". For NIC cards, also look for settings for "wake on magic packet" or "Wake up capabilities" (varies between different drivers) and turn all wake up functionality OFF unless you know you really need it.

 

This is precisely why I suggested that this discussion really ought to take place in the existing thread on the topic. The specific discussion of WOL being a possible culprit was investigated and found to not be a contributor to the problem.

arth1, I am not directing this at YOU, I realize you were not part of the original thread and are trying to help. This is directed to the original poster who didn't want to use the other thread that contains a lot of investigative data. I really think it would still be a good idea to ask a moderator to merger this thread with the original. It is pointless to rehash datapoints already examined in the other thread, or to ignore that those points already exist.

Gary

 

Despite "testing", it may still be a part of the problem, for two reasons:
1: Sony, unlike many other manufacturers, do not give access to turning off WOL completely in the BIOS. Just because the devices have been set to wake the machine doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't powered so they CAN do so.
2: There was no mentioning of whether these systems were turned off to state S4 (hibernation), S5 (soft off) or G3 (mechanical off). The states differ, especially with respect to whether they provide power to devices that potentially can turn the computer on. Despite "common knowledge", a computer isn't turned completely off when it goes into hibernation.

 

Yes I am aware of the S4 vs S5 vs G3 states. Again all of that was discussed in the other thread. One more reason why i think starting a new thread for this was a bad idea. I still think it would be a good idea to merge these two threads. That way it would be easy to refer back to other parts of the discussion rather than starting over again. There was an examination of what power state the network adapters were in when the machine was placed in the S4 state. I don't recall for sure what was found but believe it was found that the devices were powered off when the WOL option was disabled. Refer back to the other thread for details.

Gary

 

It's sad Sony has a problem like this. This happens to me on my SR too. Could have been a perfect 5 stars laptop if not for problems like this. Hundreds have tried to diagnose the problem with no luck. I am calling this a feature of the laptop.