Battery drain when shut-down (HP Spectre x360)

[op1001]

I did a test these last few days with similar speced units.

I used the following...

Hp spectre i5-7200u  (sphnix updated)

and a new laptop i got last week from amazon acer aspire s i5-7200u 

both having 256gb touch screen etc etc.

Both laptops were turned off, and everything BIOS option was set to default ike when you bought the laptop.

I left both laptops off for 3 days..... both charged to 100%

HP after 3 days 82%

Acer 91% 

that to me it is a significant drop on the hp..  few more days off and it would be empty.

for the Cost of the HP you'd expect premium.. but not when customers are beta testers...  

for the cost of the Acer it is more premium in my mind in the battery department, which is very important on laptops

[lynx3333]

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@op1001 wrote:

I left both laptops off for 3 days..... both charged to 100%

HP after 3 days 82%

Acer 91%  

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After the Sphinx Update and charged to 100%, my 13-W023DX drops to 91% after 3 days powered off so it is the same as your Acer

[pqkiller666]

My research on this topic has lead me to this page:

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/elevating_self_discharge

It seems that the lithium ion standard self discharge is 5% in the first 24 hours and then a further 1-2% per month thereafter.

After the SPHINX fix, the battery discharge appears to at or better than this - prior to this ie 10% in 24 hours it was definitely too much.

It also seems from the information provided there that the discharge rate is far higher when the battery is at full capacity.

Which leads me to wonder, after the SPHINX fix is there really an actual fixable problem?

Or, has HP made it's battery percentage reporting so accurate that it has shot itself in the foot (perhaps other previous incarnations estimated battery percentage incorrectly, thus hiding the regular Lithium Ion discharge.

Also, just so everyone knows, I do NOT work for HP nor do I have any commercial interest in their products... I just seek to understand exactly what is going on here.

[Bottomsup1]

pqkiller666, even after the fix in average there is a 3% drop per day so after a month it would be completely drained. According to your numbers it would be about 7% drop after a month. So how is that similar?

[pqkiller666]

I haven't actually seen any further drain after 24 hours and I haven't seen any battery reports to show this either...

I use my laptop at least once every 24 hours as I actually bought it to use it for a purpose rather than just leaving it sitting so I can split hairs over 2 or 3 % of battery every time I turn it on.

Granted when I first bought it, and it was discharging at a rate of 10% per day, this was unnacceptable but if you read further down the page on the link rather than just skimming what I summarised from it, you'll also notice that increased temperature causes higher discharges over the ensuing period after the first 24 hours, up to 4-6% (per month) at 25 degrees celcius (77% Farenheit) and this number is something like 20% when the battery is fully charged so...

Given that alot of the reports of the users here are based on a drop from 100%, and many of these laptops may be being stored at well above 25 degrees celcius (the discharge rate per month is 15% at 60 degrees celcius, probably around the temperature of the laptop body when it is turned off after use) its difficult to say that categorically none of these items are factoring into the discharge.

Or maybe, the battery manufacturer stored the original batteries at 0 volts and we all have batteries conditioned to being at 0 volts ie useless batteries, but this would be a serious trading mistake on account of the manufacturer and no firmware changes would ever enable the battery to disharge any less as it has been shown in this instance to have done.

[pqkiller666]

I certainly wouldn't be using HP's return for service option under any circumstances...

They have just sent me an email with a list of details to write back to them with so they can organise a postage label, and in the email under the address box they have included a residential address in Western Australia presumably of a previous customer.

So clearly your privacy is not protected by HP when they are investigating warranty issues.

I won't post the address here but I will say it is in WA, Australia, postcode 6107.

If any one on this website wants to confirm that address with me as their own by stating if fully I would be happy to forward that person the email I received so they can take it up with an HP representative... or a lawyer.

[op1001]

I personally think shpinx workaround is a bunch of trial and error and hoping it is what it is.. to get customers to shut up.

only way to tell if it works or if it does anything is get people without it do a battery test 

and then compare with the update.

like looping a video over and over etc.

what worries me is 100% to 94% after a few minutes of the laptop being on.

6% in less than a few minutes is nutty.

[Av8er-Rick]

Pqkiller666 if it were draining at the rate you suggested 4 % per month I don't think that would be to big of a deal. But after the sphinx update empirical data from several users is 3% per DAY.  That is an unacceptable rate. I've been running a test since the new F.20 firware,  over 48 hrs its been draining at a rate of 3%/day. I'm on a trip now and it won't be touched for 4 days. My guess is it will follow the same trend.

[Bottomsup1]

Battery life and performance seems to be ok. I ran a 1080p video on a loop with 50% brightness and it uses about 9% per hour. I only ran it for about three hours. This number is in line with what they state on the x360 page.

[pqkiller666]

4% discharge per month is true only at 25 degrees celcius and after the battery would have drained 20% from its full charge, again at 25 degrees celcius, and I beleive the temperature for most fully charged batteries on these laptops is higher as the laptop tends to be warm if being used while charging not to mention the heat of the charge itself.

So, the battery should drop to around 80% very quickly after being fully charged and if it has 40-60% battery life when left alone, only then will it only drop the 4% per month cited.

As I said, most of the reports here are based on drops from 100% and I don't see anyone who has left their laptop for one month to see whether or not the drop levels out after the first 24 or even 48 hours, let alone a month excepting those who have done flashed their firmware with the Sphinx fix.

Also note that this 4% rate DOUBLES for every 10 degrees celcius increase in temperature, so if your laptop is 35 degrees when you turn it off (I would say the internal temp is probably much higher) then the discharge rate will be much higher.

What would be interesting to see is how many mobile phones lose charge if left off for long periods of time from 100% but since most people keep these switched on 24/7 that is a difficult test to perform unless you have a few spare phones lying around (which are brand new and assuming Android and Apple software dislays battery levels accurately.