Pavilion 15z-eh000 has a power drain issue even at s5 state

[AndyCho]

Recently I bought Pavilion 15z-eh000 laptop from hp.com at Nov 2020 and I'm using it after long wait. But, I found it has a serious problem in its power consumption at s5 state(power-off). Although I recharge the battery to full then turn it off (I mean s5 state) after disconnecting the AC power, it wastes power from battery so much. Just after 1 day, it becomes almost half. After 2 days, it becomes almost empty. I found the same symptoms from other uses here : https://slickdeals.net/f/14628808-hp-pavilion-15z-15-6-laptop-1080p-ips-ryzen-7-4700u-8gb-ram-256gb-...

 One guy told that CPU is alive even in s5 and it makes high-frequency sound. It really does in my laptop too. I replaced my laptop's BIOS to rev 05 from 10 and still the same. Naturally I tried all the things about power such as turning USB charging off, but no difference. I disabled all possible device drivers, but still same, and I also installed clean Windows 10 but still same. 

 I believe this is very serious bug of this laptop and this laptop is seriously defective. Please answer on this situation and provide a bug fix of this. I believe this will require BIOS update. 

[cpuUpgradeg]

I have this same exact problem, same model, same slickdeals at HP.com.  I disabled USB-C charging in the bios, same issue.  I powered off the laptop by going to menu and shutdown.  Then I disconnect the AC adaptor.  Battery drained from full charge 100% down to 84% close to 24 hours.  These are with 100% HP parts and image.  Maybe this laptop is this cheap for a reason.

I called HP but unfortunately, they say they no longer carry this model and that the only option is a refund?  they are unwilling to send out an exchange with a replacement that cost more.

I've been on the call with HP for over 3 hours and 21 minutes the other day, then got disconnected, and then another 2 hours today.  This is a very new line of laptop and HP discontinued it?  I think HP doesn't want to do exchanges so they discontinued that model.  It was a horrible support experience.  Last call ended with supposedly a supervisor who told me that warranty of the laptop is automatically voided since I put in new ram and nvme.  I contacted HP in the USA at Palo Alto but spoke with an operator in the Philipines, then transfered me to someone in the USA in new mexico who clarified that if I send in laptop for repair, they won't do the repair with 3rd party hardware.  That's fine, I can always put back HP parts.  I was told that my warranty isn't voided but support from the Philipines just suck cuz the USA explaination is very different from the USA counter part. 

Right now, I just want to know from HP if this is a design defect and if so what can be done about it.. that they really don't have a "fixed" version of this laptop without the cpu noise and battery drain?

[AndyCho]

We need to gather other users and need to utilize the Lemon Law at this case, if the HP doesn't provide acceptable support(maybe new BIOS release to achieve real S5 state) on the battery drain issue. How do you think about this? 

[cpuUpgradeg]

It might be as simple as a bios fix..not sure, see:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/Battery-drain-when-powered-off...

If not, this is a problem.  The issue is that both you and me have bios version F.05a from support.hp.com while others who bought it also through slickdeal's hp.com as you've provided have bios F.10.  Do you know if F.10 had the same issue?  I'd like to know if HP can provide a bios update that can fix this issue.

[AndyCho]

Mine was originally F.10 version and it showed the issue first. After downgrading to F.05 and F.03, the issue was same too. Now I'm using F.05.

One thing what I want to tell other guys is... this is not a battery issue. This is about inadequate power control and power status of low-level firmware (maybe BIOS). The battery level is just one of results from it. I feel that some guys' issue raising about battery itself(like battery cycle) clouds root cause of this issue. 

I bet we should request fixed BIOS release to the HP. (FYI, I have an experience of x86 device development long time ago, and now working in embedded SoC industry.)

[cpuUpgradeg]

What you say makes sense.  How do we get HP to look into a bios fix for this?

[AndyCho]

First of all, we need to gather users which is going through this issue. We need to deliver our complain to the HP and it should be delivered to its development team. So, adding more weight on this post is important as a first step. 

I believe this issue is not a random issue and all users have the same thing. Maybe some of them are using like a desktop, so they couldn't notice yet. Is there a good way to gather other guys more? Making a thread in Reddit or else can be good. 

[AndyCho]

In addition I think there are three possible cases about the issue : 

1. Just HP developed the BIOS with minimal effort and the issue wasn't observed by them internally. 

2. Because of a defect in the circuit design, power off is really impossible without HW modification.

3. At any reason(=incurable bug), they had to choose only one mode to support  between sleep mode and power off mode, and they chose to support sleep mode only. 

I want to believe this is just the first case...

[cpuUpgradeg]

Lenovo has same issue on their laptop, but Lenovo was willing to fix it via a bios update:

https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-11e-Windows-13-E-and/High-Battery-Drain-When-Powered-Off/m-p/4...

I'd really like HP to work on this and not say that this is normal behavior, because it's not.

[AndyCho]

Yeah so we have to gather other users here and need to push the HP to do so.