Laptops Weird issue with Laptop battery

[Kaleen Bhaiya]

Laptop settings-Running unsupported Windows 11 Release 22H2. As per PC Health Check, CPU is not supported, but it supports TPM and Secure boot.
HP Pavilion 15- AU134TX.

As the title says, my battery behaves weird when I try to charge it. When the laptop is on, it won't charge beyond 75%. But when I charge it with it switched off, it charges to 100%. Also did battery tests as supported by HP Diagnostic tools and it says battery is good with more than 90% capacity remaining.

Any ideas? Seems like OS or battery gauge is not working properly when the laptop is on. Cannot update my chipset and other as there is no support for Windows 11. Already on latest update, if that helps.
Also, battery looses charge rapidly if removed from AC mains. Doesn't seem to be an issue with battery life else it would have not charged to 100% even when laptop was switched off.
Any suggestions? I already tried un-installing Microsoft APCI- Compliant Control Method battery as suggested by Google, but the issue persists.

 

[enthusiast29]

At this point you can only blame chipset drivers. Try windows 10 on a spare drive and see if you can replicate the behavior.

 

[Kaleen Bhaiya]

@enthusiast29 When I was on W10, I didn't face this issue. This issue propped up only when I decided to try W11 for curiosity. Seems like you are right about the chipset drivers. I might have to roll back to W10.
I don't want to purchase new laptop just because M$ says so. Wanted to see how things would go with W11 on an un-supported hardware post-2025, when support for W10 officially ends.

 

[enthusiast29]

2025 is too far ahead and W11 market share is low compared to that of W10.
Also I'm not sure if you clean installed W11 or upgraded over an old install of W10 that might also cause unforeseen issues.

Having a spare SSD to test stuff is not a bad idea.

 

[nRiTeCh]

@enthusiast29 When I was on W10, I didn't face this issue. This issue propped up only when I decided to try W11 for curiosity. Seems like you are right about the chipset drivers. I might have to roll back to W10.
I don't want to purchase new laptop just because M$ says so. Wanted to see how things would go with W11 on an un-supported hardware post-2025, when support for W10 officially ends.

Revert back to Win 10 as even though THEY say Win 11 is now 100% bug-free and compatible, there still persists both major/minor issues which are giving nightmares to many users no matter basic or hi-end laptops.

 

[Kaleen Bhaiya]

Also I'm not sure if you clean installed W11 or upgraded over an old install of W10 that might also cause unforeseen issues.

It was a clean install. But 22H2 was an upgrade. But this issue started when I migrated to W11.

Edit- Also Firefox consumes around 2 gb of ram for four tabs opened in the browser. For a single tab it's around 750-800mb. Don't know if this is normal as I don't know how much should it consume on a "W11 supported machine."

 

[lockhrt999]

Many laptops have battery calibration tool in the BIOS menu. You can try that.

How old is your laptop?

 

[Kaleen Bhaiya]

Having a spare SSD to test stuff is not a bad idea.

Can I try on an SSD partition?

Many laptops have battery calibration tool in the BIOS menu. You can try that.

How old is your laptop?

I got it in 2016, two months after demonitisation. It's a 7th gen Intel SoC.

 

[lockhrt999]

I got it in 2016, two months after demonitisation. It's a 7th gen Intel SoC.

Apart from buggy windows 11, there could be a possibility that the battery is going bad.

 

[Kaleen Bhaiya]

@lockhrt999 I already replaced my battery back in 2020. Also, never charged it above 80%.

I get that battery ages with time. But this was not an issue with W10 which I was using till September 2022. I installed W11 somewhere in October and among the first things I noticed was decrease in battery life and high ram consumption, especially FF.

It seems to be more of a software/ OS issue than hardware one. As mentioned above, the battery capacity drops by large value in W11, unlike in W10, where the drop was gradual. This is more visible when battery charge is fully charged, it drops from 100 to 92% rather than 100-98-96 etc.

For now the options would be to do a fresh install of W11 22H2(a big hassle to get through the restrictions set by M$) or revert back to W10(peace of mind).

 

[StygianClaw]

For now the options would be to do a fresh install of W11 22H2(a big hassle to get through the restrictions set by M$) or revert back to W10(peace of mind).

In case you decide to reinstall Windows 11, Use Rufus to create a bootable USB using the Windows ISO. There are a few checkboxes for options like bypassing Win 11 requirements, Allowing local user account creation etc. This makes it very easy to install Windows 11 on unsupported hardware.

My mom is using one of my old laptops. It's an Inspiron 7460 with an i5-7200U (7th gen). It's working fine on Windows 11 22H2. Turn off memory integrity in the security centre if it's enabled. It reduces performance on older hardware. On clean installs, it is turned off by default (EDIT: Since 22H2, it's on by default for clean installs).

 

[Kaleen Bhaiya]

@StygianClaw I have the same CPU, i5-7200U. I think I might have enabled memory integrity as the security centre was nagging me about security issues. I recall it was off by default.
Do you have SSD as primary drive? Have you disabled Fast Boot(FB)? I have read and also observed that battery is being used to some extent even when switched off. Although FB relies on hybrid mix of sleep mode and shut down, but the battery used when it's shut down seems to be a bit on the higher side in my case.

 

[StygianClaw]

I have the same CPU, i5-7200U. I think I might have enabled memory integrity as the security centre was nagging me about security issues. I recall it was off by default.

Yeah, that feature has a disproportionate impact on performance with older CPUs. In some cases as much as 30% if I recall correctly.

Do you have SSD as primary drive?

Yes, the primary is an M.2 SATA SSD. The secondary used to be an HDD but I recently swapped it out for a 2.5" SSD.

Have you disabled Fast Boot(FB)?

No, I keep it enabled. The only time it caused me issues was on another system where it would not hibernate or shut down with it enabled. Clearing CMOS and reflashing the BIOS fixed it.

I have read and also observed that battery is being used to some extent even when switched off. Although FB relies on hybrid mix of sleep mode and shut down, but the battery used when it's shut down seems to be a bit on the higher side in my case.

If your system supports modern standby, it can receive notifications and perform background tasks like updates etc when sleeping. On Windows 11, it is enabled by default. You can type "powercfg /a" in the command prompt or PowerShell to see which sleep states are available on your PC. If it's S0, then modern standby could be the problem. If it shows S3, then something else is the culprit.

 

[enthusiast29]

Can I try on an SSD partition?

Can you? Yes. Should you? Probably not since it rewrites the boot sector creating 2 OS entries and it's not easy to revert without 3rd party tools.

Memory integrity is turned on by default on clean installs of W11 22H2 only. If you had previous versions and upgraded to 22H2 it'll still be off. Turning it on explicitly can cause performance issues and some other unexpected issues with applications.

Modern standby is a buggy mess and drains battery if put the laptop to sleep while charger connected. It doesn't "respect the sleep state" because it tries to do many background tasks while in sleep mode draining your battery to the point of depletion.
Only use modern standby when you're not charging your laptop since it doesn't detect connection and disconnection of AC power/charger. You can charge after you put the laptop to sleep but don't put it to sleep while charging since on removal it won't change the state. Anyways, I don't think 7th gen supports modern standby anyway, should be the classic S3 sleep only.

 

[Kaleen Bhaiya]

My laptop won't go to sleep if connected to Mains, goes to sleep only on battery. This issue was persistent also in W10. I opened a thread here, things went above my head, didn't bother much.

I don't think my CPU supports modern sleep mode as I recall nritech mentioning the same about which sleep mode is supported by my SoC.

Turning it on explicitly can cause performance issues and some other unexpected issues with applications.

Need to check on this. Will turn it off today, keep on observation and revert back.

@StygianClaw did you a clean install of 22H2 on your old laptop or upgraded from 21H1?

 

[StygianClaw]

I don't think my CPU supports modern sleep mode as I recall nritech mentioning the same about which sleep mode is supported by my SoC.

Intel explicitly mentions that the 7th gen supports modern standby (PFA screenshot). However, if the system vendor does not implement it in the BIOS, it will not work. Better to check available power states using powercfg in this case.

@StygianClaw did you a clean install of 22H2 on your old laptop or upgraded from 21H1?

I did a clean install of 22H2. Before that, it was running Windows 10.

 

[Kaleen Bhaiya]

So I ran powercfg /a and I got this..

C:\Windows\System32>powercfg /a
The following sleep states are available on this system:
Standby (S3)
Hibernate
Hybrid Sleep

So now I a trying to do a fresh install of W11 22H2 to see if it helps. If not, then will probably revert back to W10.
Memory integrity was switched on by me. I have disabled it, battery has reached 78% but it is charging very slowly. I have been charging since 8 pm today and till 10:18pm, its only at 78%.
Some update after last night. It seems that my laptop really is poorly optimised for W11. Watching a 1080p video on YT does drain my battery. I will do some more YT testing since my primary usage is content consumption and work based.
I also need to check how much is the idle battery drain.
It seems HP didn't want users to upgrade to W11. They did release a TPM update around 2021 when the launch date for W11 was near. But no much support for chipset or drivers.

@StygianClaw and others. Could you guys please go through my above post and give your feedback? it seems to have been merged with my previous post hence the thread could not be updated with my findings.

 

[StygianClaw]

So I ran powercfg /a and I got this..

Okay, so modern standby is not the issue then.

Memory integrity was switched on by me. I have disabled it, battery has reached 78% but it is charging very slowly. I have been charging since 8 pm today and till 10:18pm, its only at 78%.

I'm not able to think of any reason for the battery acting this way. Normally, it's a sign that the battery is on its last legs. But in your case, you are saying it happened after updating to Windows 11.

Some update after last night. It seems that my laptop really is poorly optimised for W11. Watching a 1080p video on YT does drain my battery. I will do some more YT testing since my primary usage is content consumption and work based.
I also need to check how much is the idle battery drain.

I recommend trying to do a clean install first. Debugging like this without any clues to go on is going to take more of your time in the end. If it does not fix it, revert to Windows 10 and see if everything is back to normal.

If that particular video is using new formats like AV1, older devices which do not have hardware decoding support for it will use software decoding on the CPU instead. This is more taxing and will drain the battery much faster.

It seems HP didn't want users to upgrade to W11. They did release a TPM update around 2021 when the launch date for W11 was near. But no much support for chipset or drivers.

Don't use the OEM drivers. Just use the ones provided by Windows update. If any driver is missing, install only those. Also, flash the most recent BIOS for your laptop.

 

[Kaleen Bhaiya]

I recommend trying to do a clean install first.

It was done in a clean setup. Formatted it last night, installed 22h2 using Rufus. I did some stress testing by watching some videos on YT and saw that battery was draining more that what I would expect. I need to see the idle drain to get a better idea about the battery.

that particular video is using new formats like AV1, older devices which do not have hardware decoding support for it will use software decoding on the CPU instead. This is more taxing and will drain the battery much faster.

This would depend on which format has been used by the uploader. This would be totally out of users hand since the probability of newer formats being used are more if it offers better benefits. But this would be the case whichever OS is used as it is hardware dependent than software/OS.

Don't use the OEM drivers. Just use the ones provided by Windows update. If any driver is missing, install only those. Also, flash the most recent BIOS for your laptop.

Already did the same.

 

[StygianClaw]

It was done in a clean setup. Formatted it last night, installed 22h2 using Rufus. I did some stress testing by watching some videos on YT and saw that battery was draining more that what I would expect. I need to see the idle drain to get a better idea about the battery.

Oh, my bad. Since the messages got merged, I somehow assumed that you were yet to do a clean install. Did it make any difference to the charging problem?

This would depend on which format has been used by the uploader. This would be totally out of users hand since the probability of newer formats being used are more if it offers better benefits. But this would be the case whichever OS is used as it is hardware dependent than software/OS.

True. I just wanted to mention it as a factor to consider in case you were playing different content each time.