Windows 7 - Heavy Battery Drain after Hibernation

Asked By Ia

11-Sep-07 10:06 AM

My machine is a new IBM/Lenovo ultraportable X 61s with Vista Business and I
have installed all the Lenovo and Vista updates.

I fully charged the battery, then put the machine into hibernation and
unplugged the AC adapter. After an overnight (8-10 hours) hibernation, the
battery had lost 15-20% power. However, if I unplugged the AC adapter before
hibernation, the battery didn't drain at all. Lenovo/IBM had already replaced
my battery and motherboard to no avail. I believe Vista was unable to shutoff
the power consumption of all the components.

At present, Lenovo/IBM Hong Kong Repair Center has confirmed battery drain
issue is real and related to Vista updates. They found out that after
reinstalling Vista, the battery didn't drain. The drain appeared only after
installing around 19 Vista critical updates.

The repair center admitted that the issue was too complicated for them to
resolve alone. They've already requested assistance from their global tech
support. Does anyone know the cause of battery drain and whether there is a
solution or patch somewhere?

24-Nov-07 02:48 PM

I too have this issue.  I just noticed it this morning after seeing it happen
two days in a row.  I'm loosing 45% of my battery in 24 hours.  I have a
brand new Lenovo T61.  I deleted the Lenovo partitions and installed Vista
Enterprise fresh, installed all the latest drivers from Lenovo and all Vista
updates.  I'll be curious and anxious to see a fix for this.  Frankly, I'm
about ready to revert back to Windows XP Pro.  Aside from application
incompadibilities in Vista (which is severely limiting what I can do and
support from my Vista machine) I used Hibernation in that OS for years
without issue.  I've had nothing but trouble with Hibernation in Vista on a
T43 and two T61's.

For now, I'm going to try unplugging the power source prior to going into
hibernation mode.  What a hokey solution.

Joel

24-Nov-07 10:36 PM

Vista Home Premium
Normal operation for the start menu power button is sleep, not hibernate, if
it is plugged in.

If you have it plugged in, used the power button icon, it will go to sleep
mode, it will save the system as if it is ready to hibernate (allow hybrid
sleep turned on), and stay in sleep mode. When you unplug it stays in sleep
using up the power.

In the Power options you need to change the way the way the Power buttons
and lid function.
There are options to use when on battery and when plugged in.

If you want machine to always hibernate when the Start menu power button is
used for instance you need to set that for both On battery and Plugged in
states.

Power options, Advanced settings Power buttons and lid.

You can tell if it actually hibernates or is sleeping. When you start it
back up if it is almost immediately available then it was just sleeping. If
it shows a busy bar running at the bottom of the screen then it is restoring
from the hard drive and it did make it to hibernate.

I am not sure from your post just how you are having the computer
'hibernate'. With the machine plugged in it will default to sleeping, it is
tricky to get it to hibernate when plugged in with default settings.

Michael

26-Nov-07 10:59 AM

I have no doubt I did use hibernate a dozen times. The battery drain after
hibernation is real and repeatable. Both Lenovo Hong Kong and Yamato
Laboratory (Lenovo's famous R&D center in Tokyo) have both confirmed the
issue.

I had reinstalled Vista using the Lenovo recovery discs (2nd revision) 3
times; once on the original 5,400 rpm hard drive and twice on a new 7,200 rpm
drive. Every time after I had finished installing Vista, I installed all the
Windows and Lenovo updates (using System Update). I was very surprised to
find out that the installation on the 5,400 rpm drive resulted in no battery
drain. I charged the battery to 100% and waited 8-10 hours several times.
However, the twice installations on the 7,200 rpm drive resulted in battery
drain!

I don't believe the 7,200 rpm has anything to do with the battery drain. I
suspect the battery drain has something to do with the priority in installing
Windows updates first or Lenovo updates first.

Yamato suggested to uncheck the option "Allow this device to wake the
computer" on the network card. However, it didn't resolve the issue.

I strongly believe one or more buggy drivers are not able to turn off some
components after hibernation resulting in the battery drain.

Ian

26-Nov-07 11:46 AM

Ian,
My NIC also has a 'allow the computer to turn off this device to save power'
option.

As I understand, if the computer is on AC power when it is hibernated then
the clock on the BIOS is set to wake the computer up, for instance at 3AM to
check for Microsoft updates. If the computer is on battery power when it is
hibernated, than the BIOS wakeup clock is not set.

It is possible that the two drives have different power management
capabilities. My drive says it supports D0 and D3 (Power Data property under
Details Tab in Device manager).

Interesting functionality displayed here, I will be watching for solutions
or additional understanding of what is going on.
My laptop is still XP so am not encountering your problem.

Michael
Vista Home Premium

26-Nov-07 12:51 PM

I am using the 5400 RPM drive which came with my T61.  I can confirm that the
option for hybrid sleep is not enabled (supposedly, this is by design in
Vista on a Laptop, as it's intended for power savings when constantly plugged
into AC).

I am selecting "Hibernate" from the shutdown menu - not closing the lid.  I
do close the lid when I indend to just go to sleep.  I do this frequently at
home when I know it's going to be plugged into AC.  I intentionally hibernate
when I'm mobile and need to maximize my battery.  When I hibernate, all the
lights are turned off - including the cresent moon, which would indicate that
it's asleep.  When I experience battery drain, there aren't any event
messages in the system event log, so I am pretty certain the laptop didn't
power up to check for Windows updates.

Unplugging the AC before selecting hibernate seems to prevent the battery
drain.  Still a dumb solution.

Also, if this is by design, it's funny that Lenovo doesn't know about this.
From Ian's post, Lenovo doesn't quickly replace batteries and motherboards on
these laptops.  The want to exhaust all troubleshooting they know of before
replacing parts.

I haven't yet tried pressing the eject button on my Lenovo dock, then
hibernating.  I'll try that later on today.  Til now, I've been doing this
strictly off the dock.

Joel

26-Nov-07 09:51 PM

Joel,

Lenovo DID replace my battery promptly after my first compliant. When I
complained the second time they replaced the motherboard. When I complained
the third time, they delivered a newly installed hard drive (with Vista only,
no Windows or Lenovo updates) to my home on a Saturday afternoon.

All of the above attempts failed to fix the battery drain. However, Lenovo
did mention that battery drain didn't appear when Vista was reinstalled (like
the day you purchased your Lenovo). However, after installing the first
several Vista updates (no Lenovo update), the battery drain appeared.

During last weekend, I was able to install Vista on my original 5,400 rpm
hard drive with all Vista and Lenovo updates. The battery drain DIDN'T
appear. Battery drain first appeared on this same original hard drive 3
months ago. I also installed Vista on a new 7,200 rpm hard drive twice,
unfortunately the battery drain appeared at both attempts. This led me to
believe the drain has nothing to do with hard drives.

At present, I firmly believe the battery drain is a software problem not
hardware. It probably has something to do with updates installation. In
another words, if you install update A first, the problem wouldn't appear. If
you install B first, it will. How else could you explain my experiences?

Ian

26-Nov-07 10:09 PM

Michael,

The battery drain appeared on both my original 5,400 and the newly acquired
7,200 rpm drives. I installed Vista (with all the Vista and Lenovo updates)
on both drives in the last couple of days. However, I don't know what I did
RIGHT,  I repeatedly hibernate my X61s several times and the battery drain
didn't appear on my 5,400 rpm drive. I didn't have the same luck with my
7,200 rpm drive though!

I believe I must have done something different installing my 5,400 rpm drive
than my 7,200 rpm drive. I think it has something to do with which update I
intall first. However, with so many Vista and Lenovo updates, it is unwieldy
for me to figure out.


Ian

28-Nov-07 07:48 AM

Michael/Joel,

By trial and error, I have found out that my Lenovo X61's modem was the
culprit quietly draining my battery. Under Control Panel -> Phone and Modem
-> Modems tab -> Power Management tab, simply uncheck "Allow this device to
wake the computer" should work. Let me know your result.

Ian

29-Nov-07 03:00 PM

Hi Ian-

Thanks for the tip.  This discussion has been most helpful.  I just disabled
that on the modem.  I'll report back after I try hibernating.

I was just getting back on this post to ask if you have the built in
Bluetooth adapter.  But I guess that wouldn't make sense since the radio is
powered off, which essentially completely powers off that device, so it
doesn't even show up in Device Manager when powered off.

By chance, do you know what the power management option is under the Intel
Gigabit adapter?  It shows "Remove power if cable disconnected".  If I recall
correctly, this is one of those devices that just worked with the initial
install of Vista, then a Windows update pulled down an updated driver, then I
went to Intel's web site to get the latest driver.

Thanks,
Joel

30-Nov-07 08:38 AM

joel,

My Lenovo X61s has a Intel 82566MM Gigabit Network card. The options under
Power Management are:

- Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.
- Allow this device to wake the computer and a sub option,
- Only allow management stations to wake the computer.

Hope the info helps.

Ian

30-Nov-07 12:18 PM

Well, I set the modem so that it won't wake the computer.  I hibernated last
night at 10 PM and at 9 AM when I pressed the power button, it was down 20%.

You must have the Microsoft provided NIC driver.  My Power Management tab
has an Intel logo and interesting power options.

Joel

01-Dec-07 12:44 AM

Joel,

Either Vista or more specifically the NIC driver couldn't shutdown the modem
or something else is draining your battery. My Power Management doesn't have
the Intel logo. My Intel NIC driver version is 9.7.251.0.

I fixed the battery drain by using the 2nd revision of Lenovo's Vista
recovery discs to completely reinstalled a new hard drive followed by
switching off the modem. If all else fail, I suggest you borrow the recovery
discs from Lenovo and do the same.

Good luck!

Ian

04-Dec-07 09:21 AM

Joel,

After couple of updates from Lenovo and Microsoft, my battery has started to
drain again. This is really annoying and puzzling!

Ian

12-Dec-07 11:41 AM

Indeed.  I had surgery last week, so I didn't get a chance to test this
further.  It looks like I had a MS provided Thinkpad modem driver.  System
update didn't pick it up.  I did download from Lenovo and applied it, change
the power management, but no dice.  Yesterday, updates came out, and after
installing and restarting, it told me I had to activate.  It wouldn't accept
the online attempt.  I am so ready to dump Vista and revert back to XP.  I'm
going to continue for now, but if this activation snafu and power management
stuff doesn't get fixed soon, I'm going back.  May as well get the power I
paid for and support for all software we run in our organization (yes, I'm on
crutches with this laptop - I have to connect to a Citrix server to use a lot
of the programs I support).

Joel

13-Dec-07 04:32 AM

Lenovo Hong Kong advised me today that they are working with Microsoft to
fix this battery drain problem. Apparently this problem affects all notebook
installed with Vista. The problem has to do with Vista meeting EnergyStar
certification or something like that.

Lenovo also noticed that sometimes their notebook PC battery doesn't drain
and sometimes it does.

To find out what devices are actually running during hibernation, Lenovo
suggests to run the following command at DOS prompt:

powercfg /devicequery wake_armed

If the DOS prompt returns with nothing, that means no device will stay on
during hibernation. If a device is listed, that means that device is running
quietly during hibernation and should be turned off.

Lenovo couldn't say when a solution will be available. However, when a
solution becomes available, they will notify me and I will let you know.

Hope you could get back on both feet soon!

Ian

13-Dec-07 01:10 PM

Running the command powercfg /devicequery wake_armed results my MS USB Wheel
Mouse (only plugged into my mini-dock), Intel Gigabit controller, and High
Definition Audio Controller.

I read on another user board somewhere that someone with an ASUS laptop was
having this same problem.  I was curious when posting on this board how it
seems it's Lenovo.  Engery Star.  That's funny.

Whatever you've heard about a tonsillectomy in an adult, it's true!  Thanks
for the encouragement.  I'll be anxious to hear what Lenovo/Microsoft work
out for a fix.  Until then, when I need to hibernate, I'll disconnect the
power before hibernating (though, this will crash your system if your docked
- doesn't matter if you hit the undock button first.  When I disconnect to
the power to the dock, the laptop freezes).

Joel

16-Dec-07 02:51 PM

Ok, after disabling wake on lan on the gigabit controller and changing power
management on the "High Definition Audio Controller" (it's a Microsoft device
under System Devices in Device Manager), I no longer have battery drain in
hibernation.

Some perceptions about this.  a)  Why would Microsoft allow a "HD Audio
Controller" the capability to wake a computer?  Is this a hidden feature?
You know, like "Clap on" and "Clap off".  Now that would be a cool feature.
b)  I never had a problem with Wake on Lan causing battery drain in XP.  Why
should this start with this OS?  Why does the OS care?  It's the physical
hardware that's supposed to detect the magic packet and wake up the computer.
The OS has no interaction there.  It's fine to disable Wake on Lan on my
laptop, but my end users laptops, I want this enabled.  I have management
tools at the office that lets me utilize WOL.  I'm using it in conjunction
with Windows Update Services to wake up all the PC's on the LAN in the middle
of the night to install Windows Updates, then shut down the machines.

At any rate, after completing this thread, I'm thinking I'm going to revert
back to Windows XP.  I might try Vista again after SP1 comes out, but XP was
much more useful on a laptop than Vista.  I intend to build a phat new
computer and load it with a TV tuner or two and load Ultamite.  Power
management features won't a primary concern, though the hybrid standby would
be a very nice feature on a system intended for the livingroom.  You know,
when you go into standby, you want it to wake immediately, but if the power
goes out, you don't want it to damage your Windows installation.

Thanks so much for the help with this Ian.

Joel

16-Dec-07 04:05 PM

note that if you have wake on lan active then the lan hardware must be 'on'
and consuming power. If it was off and not consuming power then it could not
see the magic packets. If wake on lan is active you will have battery drain.

I also would like to know what HD Audio Controller has to do with waking the
computer. I like your clap on clap off idea though.

On my laptop with XP (SP2) for power management on my Ethernet adapter it
includes this warning.

Warning: Allowing this device to bring the computer out of standby may
cause this computer to periodically wakeup to refresh its network state. If
You travel with this computer or run it on a battery, you should not turn on
this feature as the machine may awaken at inopportune times or consume
the battery.

The same warning is in my Vista machine.

If you don't 'Allow this computer to turn off this device to save power' in
either XP or Vista you will get battery drain.
(at least with my configurations)

Michael
Vista Home premium - Dell XPS 410 (desktop)
XP  - Dell Inspiron 8100 (Laptop)

17-Dec-07 03:00 AM

JF, good to hear that you've fixed the battery drain problem. On my side, my
Hi Def Audio Controller doesn't have the power management option.

As far as I know, the battery drain problem also affects Sony, Asus and
probably all the notebook PC installed with Vista.

13-Feb-08 10:10 AM

According to Lenovo, if your notebook PC meets EnergyStar 4.0 standard, your
battery will drain during hibernation. Vista will make this kind of notebook
PC monitor several ports during hibernation and therefore drain the battery.
It is a bit ironic because EnergyStar compliant notebook PC are supposedly
more energy efficient; all thanks to the poorly written Vista,

However, all is not lost, Lenovo has come out with a patch called powerpatch
to stop battery drain during hibernation. The patch will work with most
ThinkPad PC installed with Vista.

I've tried it and it works.

15-Jun-09 09:09 AM

Is there any update to this issue. It has been 1.5 years since this issue was reported to Lenovo's support labs but it is still unsolved.
Any workaround/hack ?