Hibernate drains battery 20% per day - X301 Windows 7

[LeonardR]

I have an X301  2777 CTO with the factory larger battery.  SSD   Running Windows 7.  All Windows patches up to date.  All BIOS and drivers up to date.  Reinstalled Power Management.  When I put the laptop into hibernate it drains the battery at a rate of about 20% per day.  The machine behavior is that of Hibernate and not Sleep. 

I have an open support case but w/o a resolution as yet.

Any ideas? 

[sirberrus]

I'm having the same problem and it's infuriating. I've replaced the battery and it is still draining. For example, I'd put the X301 into hibernate at 95% battery; when I turn it on a day or two later, it'd be at 25%.

There's a radio switch behind the laptop and I've taken to turning it off off before hibernating; and it still draining. It is clearly a hardware issue.

The other battery I placed into an older version of X301; and it seem to last forever; so it is a problem only the X301 that has an activated Verizon WAN.

I'm at my wits end with this, if any has faced a similar situation and have resolved it, I'd love to hear about it.

[LeonardR]

Lenovo ask me to download several new drivers and install them which I did.  No Help.  Then I took the battery completely out to see if it held a charge for a few days to rule out the battery as the problem.  The Battery held the charge when it was out of the machine.   Called back Lenovo and was now told 25% a day loss was norm for hibernate mode.  I said not true with all the ThinkPad’s in the past and perhaps he is thinking of sleep mode.

Unbelievably,  and I had been very polite, I was told “well if you don’t believe me” and he hung up!

I called back later that day and was told by a nice lady that I was correct and hibernate should not drain the battery anywhere near the extent I was experiencing.   I was promised a Level 2 Tech would call back.  Still waiting. 

I’m a fair size ThinkPad buying company but they are alienating me. 

I am also going to try shutting the machine down as opposed to hibernate to see if the battery drains when the machine has shut down but the battery is still in place.

Would like any input from other x301 users on this.   I will post if resolved -or if- not.

[LeonardR]

I have determined that the problem only occurs when put into hibernation with power adapter connected.  It does hibernate if put into hibernation without the power adapter connected.

Still waiting for Level II phone call.

[LeonardR · Accepted solution]

FInally heard from Level 2.  This person checked with his boss and came back saying he was told this is a known problem on Microsoft's side.  Fixed in Vista per KB item 970030 but no fix for Win 7 as yet. 

Interestingly, I had installed and tested the new power management driver which did not help.

I had also just installed the Power Manager driver 3.2 of March 2010 but was in the process of testing.  It turns out that this driver seems to have solved the problem. 

[corsairgt]

It's the Wake timer which is causing the drain during hibernation. See my other post.

[thinkpaduser5]

I have checked the wake timer, verified that it is set correctly, and the battery still drains. I put the x301 into sleep mode (not hibernate) on Friday evening when the battery charge was 100%. Monday morning I woke the computer and the battery was at 7%.

The battery should not have drained 93% in 2 days of being in sleep mode.

[corsairgt]

Your situation is normal. Sleep mode drains battery, Hibernation mode doesn't.

Use Sleep mode if you want to take a coffee break. Use Hiberation mode if you don't use your PC for a couple of hours or days.