What to do if laptop battery drains when turned off

[BeemerBiker]

Clicking on the windows 10 or 11 power "Shut Down" should turn off the laptop. 

If your laptops is unplugged and you find the battery has significantly drained overnight,  one or move devices are drawing power.  Windows can allow some devices to continue to draw power.  it is also possible that a Windows update replaced a device driver with one that is not power efficient.  

Some devices know to cause power drain

• USB hubs that can allow charging of devices
• Thunderbolt port that can be used to dock with
• The Intel Management Engine may tasks some device to maintain power.

Run the following command from the windows administrators command prompt to find devices that can wake up a laptop or desktop that is supposedly turned off.

powercfg -devicequery wake_armed

for example the following devices are enabled even if the PC is turned off

They are all drawing power EVEN WHEN LAPTOP IS TURNED OFF.

Use the device manager to prevent the above devices from waking up a system

If is also possible the battery was drained because the system was put to sleep instead of being turned off.

1 - If you close the lid of the laptop to soon after clicking the windows power "Shut Down" it is possible the laptop went to sleep first.

2 - If you press the power button to turn the laptop off you probably put the laptop to sleep instead of turning it off.  Use the control panel to check the power plan and ensure that the system actually turns off when your press the power button.  Here is a typical plan and the default is to sleep.

[mickhence]

If your laptop battery drains when turned off, try these steps:

1. Disable "Fast Startup" in Windows settings.
2. Check for BIOS/UEFI updates from the manufacturer.
3. Ensure the laptop is completely shut down, not in sleep or hibernate mode.
4. Remove any connected peripherals.
5. If the issue persists, the battery might need replacement or professional inspection.

[Sparky_101]

I’ve searched high and low for a solution to this problem for years and struggled to find anything that worked. This solution feels very promising and I really hope it works. I’ve just followed the steps and found a list of devices (very similar to those screenshots). I’ve unticked the box shown and re-ran the query with the response being “NONE” so fingers crossed, that was the solution! If so, thank you so much in advance. 

Also, I’ve had this issue from day one of buying it brand new so I’m a little baffled as to why this was an issue in the first place. No doubt the months spent not using my laptop and it draining to zero battery and having to keep it on charge so much has likely shortened its lifespan. 

Update: I found the battery was still draining sadly, however I’ve since identified the issue. Despite removing the devices that were draining the battery (steps above) there was one that kept reactivating every time I turned on my laptop so when it next switched off, it started draining again. Although there doesn’t seem to be a permanent solution to this, I’ve found a workaround which has done the trick. I saved a notepad file as .bat with the command: powercfg devicedisablewake “NVIDIA USB Type-C Port Policy Controller”. Each time I turn off my laptop I need to run this as administrator which disables it before shutting down. It’s a little annoying but at least it’s not draining my battery anymore. Hope this helps.

[mickhence]

If your laptop battery drains when turned off, try these steps: disable "Fast Startup" in Windows settings, check for and disable any "Wake on LAN" or similar settings in BIOS, update your BIOS and drivers, and remove any connected peripherals. If the issue persists, the battery may need to be replaced.

[Derrick_Morriso]

It was very helpful and you can also try these tips.

1. Disable Hibernate: Run powercfg /h off in Command Prompt to disable hibernation.
2. Adjust Sleep Settings: Set sleep mode to "Never" in Power Options.
3. Disable USB Selective Suspend: Go to Control Panel > Power Options > Change plan settings > Advanced power settings > USB settings, and disable USB selective suspend.
4. Turn Off Bluetooth: Disable Bluetooth if not in use to save battery.

I hope this helps Thank you 🙂

[Only1_Azaboi]

Awesome 

Works 

[marvinjreger]

It seems certain devices are drawing power even when the laptop is shut down. I’ll check for any devices enabled to wake the laptop and adjust power settings or disable them to prevent unnecessary battery drain. I'll also make sure all device drivers are up-to-date and power efficient.