Battery light flashes five times after shutdown

[LoneWerewolf]

A month or so back Windows update updated the BIOS on my laptop, which changed colour and behaviour of the charging LED on the side of the laptop.  Since then, after I have shutdown the laptop (clicking on start/power/shutdown), the charging LED blinks white (in groups of 5 flashes, then a pause) continuously while shutdown (either when plugged in or not).  This is draining the battery when not in use - sometimes I will have to plug the laptop in before it will even power on again, even though the battery had plenty of charge when it was shutdown.  Windows update is current, I have checked for a more recent BIOS update (there is not one), I have run the HP Diagnostics which says everything is fine.

Note: The laptop appears to be shutting down (not sleeping), as when I power it back on it goes through the whole boot cycle.

A related issue is that if I have the "low battery level" in power options set lower than 17% (I used to have it set at 13%) when the laptop reaches that threshold it notifies me but immediately locks and won't power on until I've plugged the laptop in again.  This happened around the same time, and members of my family have said they are now experiencing the same issue with their laptops (acer, lenovo), and that they just keep them plugged in permanently now to prevent it from happening - this makes this additional problem seem like a windows update issue that affects multiple brands/models.

[Echo_Lake]

@LoneWerewolf

Thank you for posting on the HP Support Community.
 

Don't worry as I'll be glad to help,

I appreciate your efforts to try and resolve the issue. 
HP Battery Check is a utility in HP Support Assistant that provides a simple but accurate test of the battery in Windows.
 

To use HP Support Assistant to check and calibrate the battery, follow these instructions:

In Windows, search for and open HP Support Assistant.

If the app is not installed on your computer, go to HP Support Assistant to download the latest version.

On the My Dashboard tab, click Battery. The battery page is displayed.

Click Run battery check.

Wait while the battery check completes.

HP Battery Check displays the battery status.

Hope this helps! Keep me posted for further assistance.
Please click “Accept as Solution” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution. Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the bottom right to say “Thanks” for helping!

[LoneWerewolf]

I have run the HP Support Assistant Battery Check and it states my battery is operating normally, however my HP laptop is still doing odd things with battery charge remaining.  One day I was monitoring the battery percentage and it read 33% remaining.  I watched a video for about 2-3 minutes and checked again and it read 23% then it immediately changed to 0% and the laptop locked.  The locking without warning (or immediately upon a warning) is still occurring (although not consistently - sometimes I will have plenty of time to plug the laptop in after getting the low battery warning).

I did, however, resolve the power button flashing five times aspect of my issue almost immediately after I posted my problem.  To do so I needed to go to Control Panel, Power Options, then click on Choose What the Power Button Does.  The next bit took me a while to figure out - click on the Change Settings That Are Currently unavailable link near the top, which then allows you to modify the check boxes below.  Now you can uncheck the Turn On Fast Start-up (which was caused the flashing white power light when powered down, and also creating some battery drain).  It does, however, take much longer to boot up now (but I can live with that over unexpected battery drain).

So, 1 of the 2 problems resolved.

[Echo_Lake]

@LoneWerewolf

Thank you for posting back. 

I appreciate your efforts to try and resolve the issue. 
As we have tried all the troubleshooting steps from our end, think this issue needs some additional technical assistance that can be better provided through one-on-one interaction with our HP Support team.

I'm sending out a private message to assist you with the next course of action. Please check your Private message icon on the upper right corner of your HP Community profile Next, to your profile Name, you should see a little blue envelope, please click on it or simply click on this link: https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/notes/privatenotespage
 

Hope this helps! Keep me posted for further assistance.
Please click “Accept as Solution” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution. Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the bottom right to say “Thanks” for helping!