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the-thinkpad-guy

Member

Registered: 2017-09-30

Posts: 8

[Solved] Thinkpad T580 Internal battery not charging fully

So I just installed Arch on my T580 and I'm having this strange problem where the internal battery only gets charged to 80% and then the external battery starts charging. When the external battery is full, the internal battery still does not charge fully.

In this case, I can remove the external battery and the internal battery will start charging past 80% but why doesn't it charge the internal battery to full in the first place, with both batteries plugged in?

I do use TLP but I have not set any charge thresholds on either battery so I'm not sure what can be causing this behavior. In Windows the internal battery charges fully then starts charging the external battery, therefore I conclude its not a hardware issue. I have also tried disabling TLP to see if it would work but it does not. Any thoughts?

Last edited by the-thinkpad-guy (2019-01-07 06:06:35)

bugsmanagement

Member

Registered: 2017-04-21

Posts: 201

Re: [Solved] Thinkpad T580 Internal battery not charging fully

Hello,

Out of curiosity, isn't the hardware that charge the battery? Don't consider the battery is going bad?

Regards

the-thinkpad-guy

Member

Registered: 2017-09-30

Posts: 8

Re: [Solved] Thinkpad T580 Internal battery not charging fully

It is a brand new laptop, I doubt the battery is going bad. Also, it does charge to 100% in Windows and as I've said it charges to 100% when taking out the external battery.

bugsmanagement

Member

Registered: 2017-04-21

Posts: 201

Re: [Solved] Thinkpad T580 Internal battery not charging fully

I am hard press that the kernel have any play how that battery is charged

Edit: How did you arrive to that conclusion?

Last edited by bugsmanagement (2019-01-07 03:43:58)

the-thinkpad-guy

Member

Registered: 2017-09-30

Posts: 8

Re: [Solved] Thinkpad T580 Internal battery not charging fully

This is why I am especially confused, why the behavior is different in Windows than Arch. If it were a hardware issue, would not the charging behavior be the same in Windows as it is in Arch?

bugsmanagement

Member

Registered: 2017-04-21

Posts: 201

Re: [Solved] Thinkpad T580 Internal battery not charging fully

I'm only guessing here, whatever you are using is miss reporting or Windows is lying and you have dud battery? What are you are using to report battery capacity ?

the-thinkpad-guy

Member

Registered: 2017-09-30

Posts: 8

Re: [Solved] Thinkpad T580 Internal battery not charging fully

I am using i3status which gets the battery information straight from /sys/class/power_supply/BATx/uevent

bugsmanagement

Member

Registered: 2017-04-21

Posts: 201

Re: [Solved] Thinkpad T580 Internal battery not charging fully

Ok, when you reboot into Windows, is 100%?

the-thinkpad-guy

Member

Registered: 2017-09-30

Posts: 8

Re: [Solved] Thinkpad T580 Internal battery not charging fully

As far as I remember, in Windows it would charge the internal battery to 100% before starting to charge the external battery. Right now I am in Arch and the internal battery is at 80% and not charging while the external battery is charging. I am waiting for the external battery to fully charge to see if the internal battery will start to charge from 80% to 100% after the external battery is full. I will update the thread when I conclude my testing.

the-thinkpad-guy

Member

Registered: 2017-09-30

Posts: 8

Re: [Solved] Thinkpad T580 Internal battery not charging fully

Looks like I found out what was causing the issue. It seems xfce4-power-manager was causing the issue, as soon as I disabled that and restarted the internal battery started charging past 80%. I guess xfce4-power-manager does not play well with multiple batteries.

jasonwryan

Anarchist

From: .nz

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 30,426

Website

Re: [Solved] Thinkpad T580 Internal battery not charging fully

Please remember to mark your thread as [Solved] by editing your first post and prepending it to the title.

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