Battery life on a new Lenovo thinkpad is abnormally draining

Issues & Assistance Wayfire
1

Hello!

Background: I acquired a new Lenovo laptop around 3 months ago. I first had arch linux installed and my battery life was lasting around 3-4 hours per full charge. A few weeks ago, my battery life started to drain extremely fast. I decided to switch over to garuda linux (wayfire) after being introduced to it by a friend. After installation, the battery contained to drain fast. My friend and I decided to let the laptop fully discharge and recharge because we thought it might have been a detection problem. After fully recharging, the laptop was back to normal (it was not discharging from 100%-0% in 10-20 mins). Auto-cpufreq is also installed on the laptop. I did a systems update using yay before making this post. I have been using my laptop mainly to access the web (firedragon and librewolf tabs are what I have open majority of the time).

The rapid discharge issue is back again and I am unsure of what to do! I have a suspicious from looking at the battery section of the system specs that it has something to do with the condition of the battery being 17.5/57.0 (4 days ago it was at 52.1/57; found this on my old post on firedragon). Is there a reason that my fairly new laptop has this condition? If so, is there a way to fix it?

Please help!

System:
  Kernel: 6.4.12-zen1-1-zen arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 13.2.1 clocksource: tsc
    available: acpi_pm parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/@/boot/vmlinuz-linux-zen
    root=UUID=283dfbce-87cb-4447-a29e-1b934e80d358 rw rootflags=subvol=@ quiet quiet
    rd.udev.log_priority=3 vt.global_cursor_default=0 loglevel=3 ibt=off
  Desktop: wayfire v: 0.7.5 info: waybar vt: 1 dm: greetd Distro: Garuda Linux base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 21F60029US v: ThinkPad T14s Gen 4
    serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 10 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: LENOVO model: 21F60029US v: SDK0T76463 WIN serial: <superuser required> UEFI: LENOVO
    v: N3PET13W (1.04 ) date: 03/29/2023
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 17.4 Wh (99.4%) condition: 17.5/57.0 Wh (30.6%) power: 20.0 W volts: 15.1
    min: 15.4 model: Sunwoda 5B10W51876 type: Li-poly serial: <filter> status: charging cycles: 74
CPU:
  Info: model: 13th Gen Intel Core i7-1355U bits: 64 type: MST AMCP arch: Raptor Lake level: v3
    note: check built: 2022+ process: Intel 7 (10nm) family: 6 model-id: 0xBA (186) stepping: 3
    microcode: 0x4119
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 10 mt: 2 tpc: 2 st: 8 threads: 12 smt: enabled cache: L1: 928 KiB
    desc: d-8x32 KiB, 2x48 KiB; i-2x32 KiB, 8x64 KiB L2: 6.5 MiB desc: 2x1.2 MiB, 2x2 MiB L3: 12 MiB
    desc: 1x12 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 2200 high: 2600 min/max: 400/5000:3700 scaling: driver: intel_pstate
    governor: performance cores: 1: 943 2: 2600 3: 1066 4: 994 5: 2600 6: 2600 7: 2600 8: 2600
    9: 2600 10: 2600 11: 2600 12: 2600 bogomips: 62668
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
  Vulnerabilities: <filter>
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Raptor Lake-P [Iris Xe Graphics] vendor: Lenovo driver: i915 v: kernel
    arch: Gen-13 process: Intel 7 (10nm) built: 2022+ ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1, DP-2, DP-3,
    DP-4, HDMI-A-1 bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:a7a1 class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: Luxvisions Innotech Integrated Camera driver: uvcvideo type: USB rev: 2.0
    speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 mode: 2.0 bus-ID: 3-4:3 chip-ID: 30c9:00ad class-ID: fe01
    serial: <filter>
  Display: wayland server: Xwayland v: 23.2.0 compositor: wayfire v: 0.7.5 driver: gpu: i915
    display-ID: 1
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: AU Optronics 0xf99b built: 2021 res: 1920x1200 dpi: 162 gamma: 1.2
    size: 301x188mm (11.85x7.4") diag: 355mm (14") ratio: 16:10 modes: 1920x1200
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 23.1.7-arch1.1 renderer: Mesa Intel Graphics (RPL-U) direct-render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Raptor Lake-P/U/H cAVS vendor: Lenovo driver: sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl
    alternate: snd_hda_intel,snd_sof_pci_intel_tgl bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:51ca class-ID: 0403
  API: ALSA v: k6.4.12-zen1-1-zen status: kernel-api with: aoss type: oss-emulator tools: N/A
  Server-1: sndiod v: N/A status: off tools: aucat,midicat,sndioctl
  Server-2: PipeWire v: 0.3.79 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active
    2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin 4: pw-jack type: plugin
    tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Raptor Lake PCH CNVi WiFi driver: iwlwifi v: kernel bus-ID: 00:14.3
    chip-ID: 8086:51f1 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlp0s20f3 state: up mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel driver: btusb v: 0.8 type: USB rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s lanes: 1 mode: 1.1
    bus-ID: 3-10:4 chip-ID: 8087:0033 class-ID: e001
  Report: btmgmt ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: up address: <filter> bt-v: 5.3 lmp-v: 12 status:
    discoverable: no pairing: no class-ID: 7c010c
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 953.87 GiB used: 33.35 GiB (3.5%)
  SMART Message: Required tool smartctl not installed. Check --recommends
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:0 vendor: Lenovo model: UMIS RPETJ1T24MKP2QDQ size: 953.87 GiB
    block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 63.2 Gb/s lanes: 4 tech: SSD serial: <filter>
    fw-rev: 1.2Q06A0 temp: 33.9 C scheme: GPT
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 953.57 GiB size: 953.57 GiB (100.00%) used: 33.35 GiB (3.5%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 maj-min: 2
59:2
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 300 MiB size: 299.4 MiB (99.80%) used: 576 KiB (0.2%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 maj-min: 259:1
  ID-3: /home raw-size: 953.57 GiB size: 953.57 GiB (100.00%) used: 33.35 GiB (3.5%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 maj-min: 259:2
  ID-4: /var/log raw-size: 953.57 GiB size: 953.57 GiB (100.00%) used: 33.35 GiB (3.5%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 maj-min: 259:2
  ID-5: /var/tmp raw-size: 953.57 GiB size: 953.57 GiB (100.00%) used: 33.35 GiB (3.5%) fs: btrfs
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 maj-min: 259:2
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 133 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default) zswap: no
  ID-1: swap-1 type: zram size: 15.29 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: 100 comp: zstd
    avail: lzo,lzo-rle,lz4,lz4hc,842 max-streams: 12 dev: /dev/zram0
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 48.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
Info:
  Processes: 343 Uptime: 25m wakeups: 36591 Memory: total: 16 GiB note: est. available: 15.29 GiB
  used: 5.01 GiB (32.8%) Init: systemd v: 254 default: graphical tool: systemctl Compilers:
  gcc: 13.2.1 Packages: pm: pacman pkgs: 1345 libs: 402 tools: pamac,paru Client: shell wrapper
  v: 5.1.16-release inxi: 3.3.29
Garuda (2.6.16-1):
  System install date:     2023-09-03
  Last full system update: 2023-09-09
  Is partially upgraded:   No
  Relevant software:       snapper NetworkManager dracut
  Windows dual boot:       Probably (Run as root to verify)
  Failed units:
2

I had a user with a battery drain issue on their Lenovo Thinkpad at work last week (they had a P16 I think). It had been getting steadily worse until they basically couldn’t use it unless it was plugged in. I opened it up, took out the battery and could see one of the four “cells” of the battery was visibly deformed. It felt a little “mushy” as well, where the other three were hard as a rock.

I took a few pictures and opened a support claim with Lenovo and they sent us a brand new battery the next day, no charge, no questions asked.

Even if nothing is visibly wrong with your battery, it is probably still worth reaching out to support.

5 Likes
3

Thank you so much for your reply! It seems like I will be reaching out to Lenovo very soon.

4

After the last few updates my system had started sitting hot and was draining my battery quite a bit faster. Not as bad as you admittedly. I too have auto-cpufreq in my system and following their README I added intel_pstate=disable as a kernel parameter and it seems the laptop has stopped getting so hot now. Apart from this I also run

sudo powertop --auto-tune

–auto-tune sets all tunable options to their GOOD setting

every startup, you can also make this command into a systemd service in case it actually helps you too

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/powertop#Apply_settings

Though do check your battery as BluishHumility suggested.

4 Likes
5

A friend and I just took a look at the physical battery, doesn’t seem to have anything wrong with it (we didn’t unscrew it so something could have been wrong on the other side). Although I don’t have heat issues as of yet, I appreciate your power management tips :D. I will try out using powertop as per your suggestion!

I’m still curious if it’s something with linux not detecting my battery correctly though.

6

also check tlp. Both can operate in unison

1 Like
7

Update: battery’s condition hasn’t fallen drastically. It’s currently sitting at 17.3/57.0. Battery life at that capacity while only using the computer for web browser as expected (around 10Wh) pre full charge. I have contacted Lenovo support, seems like they want me to ship my laptop in for a repair. Hoping that I could get a battery and fix it myself instead. Still very confused how the laptop’s battery capacity fell that much in four days from web browsing.

8

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