Hi,

I have a 2017 Thinkpad T470s which I mostly use with an AC charger plugged.  However, when the machine is running on battery it suddenly turns off while the battery percentage is still around 50% or more.

I think one issue is that the machine fails to switch from the main to the secondary battery.  Once when the machine turned off I turned it on without plugging the charger.  It booted without any problems and then I could in Power Manager that one battery is empty while the other is almost full (and it continued to deplete the full battery).  Yet, I think the issue is somewhat deeper: I let the machine run on the second battery and after a while, it turned off unexpectedly.  This time I could not turn it on without the charger (as the second battery was empty), but I am surprised that I did not receive any 'low-battery' warning in advance.

I have a couple of questions:

• Is there a way to determine if this is a software issue or a hardware issue?  FYI, I am running Fedora 32 on the machine, so I do not have the possibility of running most of Lenovo's Windows-based fancy diagnosis tools.  
• Evidently, both of the batteries have reached close to 50% of their capacities.  The following is the output of upower:

  native-path:          BAT0
  vendor:               SMP
  model:                00HW023
  serial:               8751
  power supply:         yes
  updated:              Wed 06 Jan 2021 04:15:23 PM CET (67 seconds ago)
  has history:          yes
  has statistics:       yes
  battery
    present:             yes
    rechargeable:        yes
    state:               fully-charged
    warning-level:       none
    energy:              13.43 Wh
    energy-empty:        0 Wh
    energy-full:         13.92 Wh
    energy-full-design:  23.54 Wh
    energy-rate:         0.0244353 W
    voltage:             12.423 V
    percentage:          96%
    capacity:            59.1334%
    technology:          lithium-polymer
    icon-name:          'battery-full-charged-symbolic'

  native-path:          BAT1
  vendor:               SMP
  model:                01AV406
  serial:               4808
  power supply:         yes
  updated:              Wed 06 Jan 2021 04:15:23 PM CET (72 seconds ago)
  has history:          yes
  has statistics:       yes
  battery
    present:             yes
    rechargeable:        yes
    state:               fully-charged
    warning-level:       none
    energy:              16.49 Wh
    energy-empty:        0 Wh
    energy-full:         16.49 Wh
    energy-full-design:  26.06 Wh
    energy-rate:         15.833 W
    voltage:             12.597 V
    percentage:          100%
    capacity:            59.4398%
    technology:          lithium-polymer
    icon-name:          'battery-full-charged-symbolic'

Is it expected that when the batteries get old, the machine fails to switch between them? Likewise, is it possible that the machine does not receive 'low-battery' notifications properly because they are old? 

• I'll be happy to purchase new batteries and replace them.  Is there a way to ensure that replacing batteries will solve both problems?  (In other words, I would like to avoid ordering new batteries and then finding out that there is a more fundamental issue with the machine, necessitating the purchase of a new laptop.)

Thanks,

Hello kaMaster!

Welcome to community forums

Performing troubleshooting steps help us narrow down and identify the issue whether its a hardware or not. Are you experiencing the same issue under Windows? Base on the list of compatible Lenovo devices, your machine is listed as one. However, it is listed as compatible to run Ubuntu 16.04 and you can refer it here: https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/solutions/pd031426-linux-for-personal-systems

Jwes_Lenovo

Hi Jwes_Lenovo,

Thank you for your response.

I do not have Windows installed on the machine.  (Actually, the machine came without any OS, so I do not even have the possibility of installing Windows for testing.)

I cannot open the link you provided (it says Access Denied).  But, at least in terms of the kernel, my Fedora 32 installation is running kernel version 5.9 which is much more recent than Ubuntu 16.04's default kernel (4.4).  So I very much doubt there would be a question of software compatibility.  (I've been running Fedora on this machine since the beginning and I only started to have this power issue in the past half a year or so. Therefore, again, I do not think there's a software/driver incompatibility.)

I very much appreciate any further help for troubleshooting and root-causing the issue.

I would suggest you bring it to any of our authorized repair centers in your area for further diagnosis. You can find the list here: https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/ch/de/partnerlocator

Regards

Jwes_Lenovo