Battery Power

[Pepper]

I have a Win8.1 HP laptop that battery power drops to 94% overnight when shut down and unplugged. It only does this every other day. One day when powered up it shows 100%, the next day 94%, the next day 100%, etc. This is with 100% showing when shut down. I have turned off fast start up, hibernation, sleep, disabled maintenance, and also turn off wifi before shutting down. Any ideas what might be causing this?

 

[midou35000]

Hey,

Might be because of the battery calibration? I think your battery is on 100% in pretty much all cases but the reading is incorrect and I'm assuming you haven't calibrated your battery before.

Try this guide: How to Calibrate Your Laptop’s Battery for Accurate Battery Life Estimates

 

[Pepper]

With it happening every other day, it acts like the laptop is turning its self on to phone home or perform some type of maintenance, even though I have it disabled. This is a known problem with certain HP laptops and so far i haven't heard of a fix. If the problem is battery calibration, seems like it would happen every time or randomly, not in such a orderly fashion (every other day). I believe Win 10 has something called "connected share" that can cause this. Don't think Win 8.1 has it.

 

[Pepper]

Error. That's "connected standby" instead of "connected share".

 

[Pepper]

Seems strange nobody else here has experienced this problem ??

 

[Barman58]

Not any specific advice on what may be happening but one thing I would try, to ascertain if the loss of charge is due to the laptop, or just the internal resistances in the battery itself.

Simply, (assuming this is possible), remove the battery from the laptop overnight and if the power loss is similar to the loss when fitted into the laptop then it's likely to be due to the internal processes of the battery.

If not then the cause would be in the laptop itself. This could be a software reason as you have stated or or some low draw internal process, to retain something like temporary Volatile RAM or even the TPM security systems.

Once you know the cause you can follow the most logical investigation path

 

[Pepper]

I have tried removing the battery after shutting down the laptop and it remains at 100% when re-installed the next day. This seems to indicate it is something taking place in the laptop when it is off. The event viewer system log does not show any activity after shutdown. I unplug it from the AC every night and plug it back in the next morning. If you leave the battery in, the first day it's 100%. The second day it shows 92-94%. Third day 100%. Fourth day 92-94%. Seems like some thing is scheduled to run every other day, but nothing is logged. I'm baffled !!

 

[deltamind]

I also have this issue but since my laptop is really old hence I guess it's the battery issue, as most people suggest. How old is your battery/laptop?

 

[Pepper]

Battery/laptop is about three years old, but has always had this problem. Strange, I also have a old HP laptop (2004 model) with original battery and it takes about a week of being unplugged to show any discharge.

 

[Barman58]

I have tried removing the battery after shutting down the laptop and it remains at 100% when re-installed the next day. This seems to indicate it is something taking place in the laptop when it is off. The event viewer system log does not show any activity after shutdown. I unplug it from the AC every night and plug it back in the next morning. If you leave the battery in, the first day it's 100%. The second day it shows 92-94%. Third day 100%. Fourth day 92-94%. Seems like some thing is scheduled to run every other day, but nothing is logged. I'm baffled !!

Thinking about things, this is a HP laptop and they do include various "valuable Utilities" The process causing the drain could be one of these - set to "phone Home" every other day or process some data . now this should be reported in the logs as a Windows process would be, but there is no guarantee that this would be the case with a third party process. You may want to check the startup using something like Autoruns for any HP processes running (look at scheduled tasks with "Wake" access and if you locate anything do a google search on what it does, you can uncheck the process in Autoruns to check for any improvement, but would only do this once you know it's purpose

 

[Pepper]

A few months ago I wiped the HD and installed a retail version of Win 8.1 to get rid of all the HP bloatware/utilities. The only thing remaining HP is the hardware. I install Bios updates as they become available. Some Intel processors "phone home" , but according to their website the one in this laptop does not. If some software is compiling data to be sent later, seems like it would be more stealthy to do it while the laptop is powered up, than giving its self away by battery drainage while shutdown. Btw, the only thing given wake access is the mouse. ??

 

[DualBoot]

I kinda remember somewhere either in the bios or windows to allow the USB to remain powered up even when the system is off.

try disconnecting all USB devices overnight and see if you still get 94% in the morning

Also there are battery monitors that read each cell and shows you if any of the cells are weak,sorry i dont have the name handy
but i will look and ammend...

 

[Pepper]

I tried turning off and disconnecting all USB devices and it didn't make any difference. Remember, the battery drain only occurs every other day. I also did a battery power report and it shows the battery is still at maximum capacity. ??

 

[Barman58]

Btw, the only thing given wake access is the mouse.

Just noticed this and it got me thinking, I would not expect a mouse to take very much power but it could cause occasional Wake actions that might do.
A modern mouse has become, in my opinion, a bit too sensitive and can see the slightest vibration to the desk it's sat on as a user input, this is enough to start a wake action, Wake actions have a timer so that if they are not used for a set period [this is user configurable somewhere in the Registry], then the wake is cancelled and the system shuts down again.

Now this is a clutching at straws possibility but something external to the immediate system which causes the mouse to vibrate enough to trigger the mouse could be a possibility though only a slight one, I've seen reports of local traffic waking a mouse, (the system was in the user's bedroom so used to wake them when the screen lit up )

 

[Pepper]

I thought the mouse might be causing the problem so I started disconnecting it (USB) after shutdown and it didn't make any difference.