HP EliteBook x360 1030 G3 battery life well below announced?

[NMGMarques]

Hi all. I purchased the EliteBook x360 G3 i7 Ref. 3ZH10EA not two months ago, and I have consistently noted that the battery seems to discharge at a fast pace. I mean like some 30% per hour. I am currently down to 65% after 1 hour 15 minutes. This doing little more than light work on Citrix // SAP, and now posting this via Chrome, so not even really utilizing the CPu at all. CPU idling at an average 8 to 10% and not much going on. Brightness is around the 50% mark. This laptop is announced with "up to 18 hours", yet I am getting nothing close to this. At the current clip, I'm out of battery well before 5 hours. Can someone confirm or let me know if there might be something I need to do to fix the issue? This looks like a laptop version of Dieselgate, where the announced values are overly inflated at non-realistic usage cases to pump up the numbers. However, I am willing to concede there may be some underlying issue or that I might even have a defective laptop.

[hct2]

Hi, I also have a Elitebook x360 1030 g3, but with an i5 instead of an i7. I had high hopes regarding the battery life, however, I experience a high battery drain. Beginning from a full charged battery I end up with 6 hours of normal usage (opening websites, officing around and so on). I do not use it for video editing or gaming. My energy setup is always on balanced. I also noticed that the machine temperature is always at around 40+°C (SpeedFan data). My BIOS is updated to the latest version of course.

[NMGMarques]

I'm afraid we're stuck with this. It seems like we are the victims of creative marketing. The anounced "up to" times are possibly in fully controlled lab conditions. In real world applications, 5 to 6 hours is about as realistic as it's going to get. And for me to get those times, I need to crank the power way down to around 20% brightness and turn on power saver.

Actually starting to regret not having gone with another Surface product. I had better times with my Surface 3 after almost 4 years of use.

[MarcW-UK]

Hi there, I have just taken delviery of an Elitebook 360x 1030 G3 i7, and have noticed in the 1st few days that the battery power unplugged is awful compared to the product descritpion given by HP, and is no better than my current Surface Pro4...did you ever manage to improve your battery life with any setting changes, and if so typically what battery life are you now getting?

Thanks,

[NMGMarques_76]

Unfortunately I never solved the issue. While I hear some people touting over 8 hours battery, for me to get as much as 4, I need to have power saving on since 90% and screen brightness as low as 25. At 25% the screen is already pretty dark, and when power saving mode kicks in at 90% as I configured it to do, it gets almost unusable. Price I have to pay to use this away from a power source. Am really very dissapointed.  

[SRhys1]

I too have the same issue. I get two  hours, maybe three when unplugged.

This is a brand new computer!!

I gave up a 6 year old Mac Book Air that was getting 6 hours!!!

Our IT dept is working with HP but no answers are coming back.

Time to send this poor example of an executive laptop to the bin. I would never recommend anyone else investing in this device.

[NickB1234]

Wanted to bump this old thread, as the comments exactly mirror my own experiences with the G3. I upgraded from an i5 G2 to an i7 G3 Elitebook mostly for the extra battery life - loved the G2 otherwise - and saw zero/slightly worse battery performance (6-7 hours with the G2 vs 6-6.30ish with the G3). Just web work, no video stuff, battery saver on, brightness as low as possible.  After reading all the G3 reviews that suggested much longer battery life this was a real disappointment. My G3 is lightly used and I wondered if a new battery would help, but it appears pretty new;

If anyone has suggestions for improving the battery life of the G3 I'd love to hear them.  This is my second Elitebook after a Dell XPS that performed brilliantly (but suffered from nose-cam). After this battery disappointment, and recently a very poor service experience, I'm starting to wonder if I should have stuck with Dell  😕

[Akraen]

I have the 700-nit 120hz 1080p HP Elitebook x360, i7-8550U, 16GB, with 1TB Samsung 960 PRO (replaced, the hynix it comes with is terrible). I am on BIOS Q90, 1.07.01 from May 20, 2019. I wish to share some of my experiences, tips, and tricks as I've been able to reach 11-15 hours of battery life, even at 80% brightness. I don't typically need that much battery life so I run 90% or 100% brightness and work from the park 🙂 I've tried dozens of ultrabooks and 2-in-1s, and this is by far the best device I've had my hands on (and the only one for sale that can be used in direct sunlight)! It just required some tweaking.

Disclaimer: Throttlestop is unlikely to brick your system, however there are settings which can result in system instability. Leave HP SureStart on for recovery to play it safe.

First off, HP includes BIOS options to conserve battery longevity/lifespan. Within the BIOS you can choose to reduce battery capacity in order to extend its lifespan. You might have this setting on, in which case 100% battery is really only around 80% battery (I'm unsure as to the specifics, an HP rep would have to detail how it works). If you don't need your battery to last without any degradation after 3-5 years or more, you can get a couple more hours by disabling this feature.

Typically I'm not a fan of using manufacturer settings, but the "HP Optimized" battery profile is ideal. The i7-8550U is more than adequate at desktop tasks, office work, web browsing, HD video even on "Battery Saver" so there is no need for maximum performance unless taking on more strenuous tasks like video editing or light gaming.

Update to the latest version of Windows 10 to access the brightness slider. If you have the 700-nit model, you'll really want this brightness slider.

Check services. HP's software often runs just fine, but there are known issues with HP SureRun and Client Security services stopping/restarting in a loop which strains the CPU. If you ever hear "popping/cracking" sounds from the speakers, it's a good sign that you have services constantly cycling. If this occurs, it contributes to battery drain significantly and you should address the problem by removing the associated software or submitting tickets so HP can maybe, just maybe, pay attention to their customers.

Replace your SSD if hynix. Hynix SSDs are cheap, inefficient, slow, and overheat. This seems to have been a cost-cutting measure by HP. I approve of their decision because it's one component you can easily upgrade yourself. If they cut costs elsewhere it may have disqualified this device for me!

Other factors will have to be troubleshot on a case-by-case basis. I've stopped using Chrome as its impact on battery life was twice the drain of Opera (which is Chromium-based anyway) in battery saver. Firefox has beaten Opera in battery life sometimes, but YMMV, because each update seems to change things and different browsers handle different content differently-- I typically have TradingView charts open and exchanges, which are a constant stream of data. (Yay 2019, where we all play musical browsers, finding the least broken one from update to update!)

Okay, so now the biggest impact on battery life: Throttlestop

Everything you need to know about Throttlestop is here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-throttlestop-guide.531329/

However, I recommend above all else to follow the same settings as the Huawei Matebook X Pro: https://www.reddit.com/r/Huawei/comments/8n2igc/huawei_matebook_x_pro_throttlestop_undervolt/

Each CPU bins differently, i7s are better than i5s for this. It's why I would purchase a more powerful processor and then scale it back rather than a mid or low-end processor. My CPU is able to handle -165mV before crashing. I set a battery profile with what I tested was sufficient for my tasks, and a plugged-in profile that maxes out boosts and overclocks a bit while undervolted (which surprisingly allows the CPU to handle some games like Warcraft/ESO) and then added Throttlestop to Windows startup. At that point, you never have to think about it again. Just budget yourself a few hours to get it all sorted 🙂

If anyone has any questions, reply to this thread and we can learn together. I feel like HP could improve their communication regarding the components within their devices. Sometimes it's a bit of an overload/bombardment navigating their software and deriving their choices in system optimization. Just don't despair, this is a very high-end device with a lot of flexibility. One must learn to navigate the BS of the internet to figure it all out is all 🙂

Good luck!

[NickB12345]

Great post Akraen.  Kudos.

I was excited to see these new options for extending battery life. Unfortunately my BIOS setting already charges my battery to 100%.  Throttlestop didn't want to install but I will persevere.  I am a heavy Chrome user, but will try Opera.

I was interested in your comments about the Hynix SSD.  Where are you getting your comparison data from?  Can there be that much difference in power draw from these M2 SSDs?  I did some Googling but couldn't find anything useful.

[Akraen]

I'm curious what your error is with Throttlestop? I could see UAC or an anti-virus having a problem with it, maybe.

I confess the hynix vs. samsung SSD is anecdotal, but I've noticed SSD impact on battery life in past upgrades as well and this was significant when I replaced the hynix. It's hard to find information about this and it's kind of why I jab HP whenever I can to release information and details. It was hard enough even finding information about the hynix to begin with!

This TH article helps illustrate just how much of a difference there can be from drive to drive, and why even within brand, EVO vs. PRO for Samsung's example, makes a big difference. https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/notebook-battery-life-storage,5152-3.html

Drivers also matter as a lot of power savings comes from smart software. The article elucidates the importance of these things quite well imo. As much as 2 hours difference depending on drives they tested, and I'd wager some bitcoin that the Hynix would be bottom of the pack if they included it 😛

HP's hynix is so bad that when I put it in an external USB-C enclosure and tried to copy videos to it after removing it from the elitebook, it crashed due to overheating. I've just thrown it away, it's useless.