[SOLVED] Battery waiting to charge

SimonJ · 2024-10-13 11:12:45

Hello, first let me say this is not an Arch problem but I am hoping to get some advice from the Arch forum as it is the best available.

Recently my battery stopped charging over 95% not worried, it is often plugged in and it is over two years old.

This week it says Waiting to charge, if I unplug it the battery drains, when I plug it back in it goes back to waiting to charge.

I did wonder if it was something I had done and had a look in the tuxedo control centre settings, I have changed almost of all of these without success.

Then in a moment of weakness I plugged the Windows 11 drive and booted that and it is the same, no charging and no increase in percentage.

Leave the machine off and plugged in also does not charge the battery.

My guess is the battery is dying and I either live with it or replace it. My question is, if the battery reaches 0% will this cause me problems? Should I remove it, or is it necessary to replace it?

There probably is better way but this is the information I can see in XFCE4

Thank you for any help or advice.

Last edited by SimonJ (2024-10-13 11:57:59)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2024-10-13 11:17:15

Check /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/ for charge_control_start_threshold & charge_control_end_threshold, if they are available they can limit charging.

SimonJ · 2024-10-13 11:21:56

Thank you, I got these

[simon@silex BAT0]$ cat charge_control_start_threshold 
0
[simon@silex BAT0]$ cat charge_control_end_threshold 
0

Should the end threshold be something other than 0?

Head_on_a_Stick · 2024-10-13 11:38:42

I use these values to keep my ThinkPad battery at 50%, the battery is still as new even after a few years:

$ cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_control_{start,end}_threshold
49
51
$

I think those reset to 95 & 100 after firmware updates, so try those as stock values.

Disclaimer: I have no idea what these values reveal about the health of your battery and I cannot guarantee absolute safety if you choose to alter the sysfs values. Proceed at your own risk

SimonJ · 2024-10-13 11:57:41

Amazing, thank you.

[simon@silex BAT0]$ sudo cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/charge_control_{start,end}_threshold
60
90

Head_on_a_Stick · 2024-10-13 12:03:23

You're welcome

I think some power management tools like tlp will mess around with those values, which might have caused the problem originally. I prefer to avoid abstraction layers and just write to /sys/ directly.

SimonJ · 2024-10-13 12:20:40

I have got the tuxedo control centre installed for fan control, I will keep an eye on them, but at least now I know.

Thank you again :-)

Arch Linux

#1 2024-10-13 11:12:45

[SOLVED] Battery waiting to charge

#2 2024-10-13 11:17:15

Re: [SOLVED] Battery waiting to charge

#3 2024-10-13 11:21:56

Re: [SOLVED] Battery waiting to charge

#4 2024-10-13 11:38:42

Re: [SOLVED] Battery waiting to charge

#5 2024-10-13 11:57:41

Re: [SOLVED] Battery waiting to charge

#6 2024-10-13 12:03:23

Re: [SOLVED] Battery waiting to charge

#7 2024-10-13 12:20:40

Re: [SOLVED] Battery waiting to charge

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