Battery completely dying when discharged

stolichniaskitnik · 2022-09-20 18:34:15

Hello all,

tl;dr: laptop battery discharges fully and then refuses to power back on unless on AC, stays like that for many hours before starts to charge; where should I start digging?
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full context:

I've been having a weird issue for the past year or so and don't know what's been causing it and where to start looking for a fix..

I bought a new laptop last year and put arch on it. My system is quite customized both on the kernel and OS levels. I believe I also have some hardware disabled in my BIOS too.
Initially I was running a few GUI applications inside of docker containers locally, and whenever I was doing that without the laptop connected to power source the battery was being drained rapidly.
Some months after that the laptop battery died completely, it was constantly showing up as 0% regardless of being connected to the AC 24/7.

I decided to buy a new battery and replace it, all worked out good and I no longer had issues. At this point I also had already stopped running docker on my laptop (the service and socket have been disabled for months now).
Unfortunately I noticed that when my battery goes completely to 0%, the laptop then doesn't start unless connected to AC and takes a good few hours to for the percentage to increase from 0%.

First time this happened after I had changed the battery and was no longer even doing anything crazy intensive on my laptop I even thought the battery has again died.
However after a few hours I noticed it had started charging and got relieved.

Since then that has happened a few times, essentially discharging the laptop completely and then it refusing to boot up again without AC, etc.
This happened again a few days ago and for over 24 hours of charging it's still showing at 0%.

Where should I start digging to find out the cause of this? Is this even a software issue or is it a hardware one?
This started happening after I moved to a new flat, however I don't want to think it's related as we have 2 other laptops, a few network devices a PC and a PS4 and none have had power issues.
Below I've provided some information related to my battery model, let me know if you'd like to look at something else from the OS.

tsvetkov@elina ~ % /usr/bin/cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/capacity
0
tsvetkov@elina ~ % /usr/bin/cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/status
Charging
tsvetkov@elina ~ % /usr/bin/cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/voltage_now
5775000
tsvetkov@elina ~ % /usr/bin/cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/manufacturer
Sunwoda-
tsvetkov@elina ~ % /usr/bin/cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/model_name
HB4593R1ECW-22T0
tsvetkov@elina ~ % /usr/bin/cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/serial_number
18432
tsvetkov@elina ~ % /usr/bin/cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/technology
Li-ion
tsvetkov@elina ~ % ls /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/
alarm     capacity_level                charge_control_start_threshold  charge_full_design  current_now  device  manufacturer  power    serial_number  subsystem   type    voltage_min_design
capacity  charge_control_end_threshold  charge_full                     charge_now          cycle_count  hwmon2  model_name    present  status         technology  uevent  voltage_now
tsvetkov@elina ~ %

Thanks

V1del · 2022-09-20 20:35:59

Refusing to boot/get to POST is almost certainly HW and batteries are very often the first, but also most easily replaced part to die.

stolichniaskitnik · 2022-09-20 20:38:21

Hi Videl, thanks. I think so too, however my question is what is causing my battery to die, how can I find out what is causing this so next time I buy a new battery the same thing doesn't happen.

Or do you mean it is the HW causing this, some issue with the mobo, etc?

seth · 2022-09-20 21:08:55

cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge*

the battery was being drained rapidly … battery died completely … buy a new battery and replace it … when my battery goes completely to 0%, the laptop then doesn't start unless connected to AC and takes a good few hours to for the percentage to increase from 0%.

There's a controller in your battery to manage the charging process (esp. prevent overcharging), it requires some current itself so if the battery runs completely out of charge (what is not supposed to happen) it will fail to act and the default state is to not accept any current (there're videos on youtube about why you should not overcharge Li-ion batteries…)

I assume there's some leak somewhere and the battery looses charge uncontrollably (explaining the rapid discharge, was the new battery affected by this as well?) - perhaps through some undue contact.

Arch Linux

#1 2022-09-20 18:34:15

Battery completely dying when discharged

#2 2022-09-20 20:35:59

Re: Battery completely dying when discharged

#3 2022-09-20 20:38:21

Re: Battery completely dying when discharged

#4 2022-09-20 21:08:55

Re: Battery completely dying when discharged

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